


The Apple Grove

by Piscaria



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-01
Updated: 2010-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:35:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piscaria/pseuds/Piscaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After saving Arthur from Morgause in a very public display of magic, Merlin must flee into the forest to avoid Uther's men. Living apart from civilization, Merlin loses his mind to the wild magic that teaches him how to survive on his own. A year later, rumours of a magical wild man finally reach Camelot. Arthur convinces his father to let him lead the small troop of knights responsible for hunting down and killing Merlin. Torn between his duty to Camelot and his feelings for Merlin, Arthur must somehow draw Merlin back from the wild magic. However, he must hurry, for Morgana has seen Merlin's hiding place in her visions, and she and Morgause are eager to seek revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The artwork for this story was drawn by the amazing [Yue IX](http://yue-ix.livejournal.com/). Please give her feedback for her amazing work. Thank you so much, Yue, for making this story come alive!
> 
> Many people contributed their time and patience to helping me make it to the end of this story. Thanks to [Ien](http://ienablu.livejournal.com/) for his phenomenal cheerleading and brainstorming. I couldn't have done it without you, hon! Thanks also to [Mellacita](http://mellacita.livejournal.com/) for wading through that tricky middle section with me. Another thank you goes out to [Rivestra](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/) for the helpful comments on my rough draft. Much love goes out to MDH, who supported this endeavor with hugs and kisses, occasional Merlin raps, and incredible patience when I begged out of other activities to work on this story. And of course, many hugs and high fives to the lovely folks at [Paperpushers](http://community.livejournal.com/paperpushers/) and [FicFinishing](http://community.livejournal.com/ficfinishing/) on Livejournal.
> 
> Beta credit goes out to [Harlequin](http://slashweaver.livejournal.com). Thank you SO MUCH for your endless patience and speedy work. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

The pageantry of the war march shocked Merlin; in his years at Camelot, he'd never seen the knights ride out with so much fuss. If not for the grim look on Uther's face, and the focussed, set expression on Arthur's, Merlin might have thought the knights rode on parade -- they sat four abreast on their horses, resplendent in their red cloaks, while banners bearing Camelot's standard fluttered in the breeze overhead. Arthur rode at the head of the army, sunlight gathered in the folds of his chain mail and gleaming off the mirror-bright surface of his halbark. Merlin had stayed up until midnight polishing it, while Arthur paced back and forth, double checking the bags Merlin had packed earlier and deriding him folding his tunics so clumsily, testing the edge of his weapons, and generally trying to pretend he wasn't nervous. Arthur had fought in wars, but always under Uther's command. Merlin had seen the expressions that flickered across Arthur's face when Uther informed him that he'd have the honour of leading the men into battle: surprise, pride, nervousness, and above all, the burning desire to make his father proud.

"I won't disappoint you, father," Arthur had said, golden hair gleaming in the candlelight as he lowered his head.

Now he rode at the front of the army, every inch the confident prince -- if Merlin hadn't witnessed Arthur's nervousness last night, he might almost have believed the act. To Merlin's trained eye, Arthur's rigidly perfect posture looked brittle, as though he might snap beneath the weight of his father's expectations. Merlin longed to slip up beside Arthur and whisper some mocking comment -- anything to set a flare of annoyance into Arthur's eyes and ease the tension in his shoulders. But though Arthur had let Merlin ride beside him when they rode out to face the Great Dragon, apparently the war march required greater formality. Merlin found himself walking at the back of the army with the rest of the servants in attendance -- no horses could be spared for them.

As the knights on horseback flowed through the castle gate after Arthur, Merlin plodded along on foot next to Gaius, who because of his age and his status as court physician, had been given a sturdy donkey. Its saddlebags rattled with all of the potions and medical supplies Gaius could manage to fit in them. Several more ceramic bottles and paper-wrapped packets of herbs filled the nooks and crannies of Merlin's pack, and the added weight felt odd on Merlin's shoulders. He'd tried using magic to make the pack lighter that morning, but Gaius had caught him at it and lectured him so soundly that Merlin had given up on the idea. Now, Gaius watched Merlin stop to shift the pack on his shoulders. Merlin's eyes were fixed ahead, on Arthur.

"Stop sulking," Gaius said, leaning over in the saddle to rest a hand on his shoulder.

Merlin glared up at him. "How can I possibly protect him from way back here?" he protested quietly, his eyes once again straying to where Arthur rode at the head of the procession.

Gaius only chuckled lightly, "Knowing you, my boy, you'll find a way."

Fortunately, Merlin didn't need to worry, at least not that morning. Though a single rider on horseback could journey to the Mercian border in a single day, a full army burdened by supply carts and servants on foot took considerably longer. The snail's pace of their march maddened Merlin. When Uther's spies first brought back word that Morgause had set up a stronghold in Mercia, and that Morgana was rumoured to be there, Merlin had expected Arthur and a small group of trusted knights to set out after her, taking Merlin with them, of course. That's how they'd responded to every other magical threat to Camelot. But it seemed that a sorceress who'd made an alliance with a neighbouring king received considerably different treatment than a sorceress on her own. Uther didn't merely want Morgana back – he wanted Morgause dead, and Bayard cowed for daring to insult Camelot by taking in one of its sworn enemies.

Merlin wished he could warn Arthur that Mercia didn't host just one enemy of Camelot, but two. How could he explain that Morgana had turned against them when the knights of Medea rode on Camelot? Arthur would demand to know how Merlin discovered it, and that would mean explaining about his magic, and Kilgharrah, and probably also the hemlock. As much as Merlin regretted poisoning Morgana, he knew that, with Arthur's safety on the line, he'd do the same thing again in a heartbeat. Yet he still couldn't look at Gaius' shelf of herbal extracts without seeing the bottle of hemlock silently condemning him. Part of him, a small and cowardly part, hoped they would fail in their quest to find Morgana. He didn't want to face her again. He still woke, too often, with the memory of her betrayed expression haunting his dreams.

The army marched all morning, pausing briefly for lunch at noon. Merlin served Arthur's food and poured ale into his tankard, but he didn't get a chance to speak to the prince – Arthur sat huddled with a group of his father's advisers, caught up in strategy. He had no time to spare for Merlin, except to berate him, loudly, when Merlin accidently splashed ale onto his surcoat. In fact, Merlin didn't get a chance to speak to Arthur until that night, when Arthur, long after the other knights had gone to bed, sat up studying the freshly drawn maps he'd spread out across the wooden table in his pavilion.

"You should get some rest, sire," Merlin said at last. He'd already cleaned the dust of a day's march from Arthur's mail, washed Arthur's surcoat (the ale hadn't stained it _that_ badly, whatever Arthur said), polished Arthur's boots, groomed Arthur's war stallion, and mended the tear that had somehow appeared in Arthur's gambeson – and he'd done it all by hand. Now, Merlin wanted only to climb into his bedroll, spread neatly on the floor beside Arthur's (the _only_ advantage to joining the knights on the war march, as far as he could see, was that he got to join Arthur in the pavilion in case the prince woke in the night wanting a sandwich or something), and get a hard-earned rest. Unfortunately, Arthur seemed determined to keep them both up all night long.

"Mmm," Arthur said, as though Merlin had commented on the weather. "Get me another candle, Merlin," he said, not even flickering his eyes away from the parchment in front of him. "This one's almost out."

"That's because you've been looking at maps for hours," Merlin said, nonetheless fetching another candle from the small, wooden chest. Arthur was right – his had nearly melted into a pool of beeswax. "Don't you have it memorized by now?" Merlin asked as he swapped the candles out.

Arthur sighed. "Bayard's men will have left already," he said. "They'll be coming from here," he pointed out a castle drawn on the map, and Merlin looked over his shoulder at it. "If Morgause has managed to assemble an army –"

"Another army," Merlin corrected, remembering the knights of Medea.

"Another army," Arthur agreed. "They'll be coming from here." With his other hand, he pointed to another castle, this one circled in red ink. "The two phalanxes," as he spoke, he traced his fingers down the roads leading away from the drawn castles, "are going to meet up right _here._" He brought his fingers together where the roads converged, near a green mass that Merlin assumed must be a forest. "That's about three day's worth of marching, for an army that size."

"And we're – where, exactly?" Merlin asked, leaning over Arthur to get a better view. "Here?" he guessed, scanning the map quickly and pressing his own finger to a spot a few inches down the road from the cartographer's rendition of Camelot's distinctive turrets.

"Close enough," Arthur said. He sounded bored, but the slight sideways glance he gave Merlin showed that he was impressed. "So tell me, Merlin, since you've taken an interest in this: how long will it take for our army to meet theirs?"

Merlin frowned at the map, leaning closer over the table. He could feel the warmth of Arthur's body against his own, smell the soapy, herbal scent of Arthur's hair. For some reason, he found it comforting. Perhaps it was merely because he'd watched Arthur from a distance all day, worrying that Morgause might appear before him at any moment. Whatever the reason, Merlin lingered over the map, calculating the distance almost languidly as he traced his finger up the drawn road at the same maddeningly slow rate at which they'd been marching all day. Arthur, too, was moving his finger down from the place where Bayard and Morgause would meet. They were both so focussed on the map before them that the sudden brush of their fingers halfway through the forest caught them off guard. Merlin pulled back, as if burned, and Arthur straightened his shoulders, coughing nervously.

"You see?" he said, carefully not looking at Merlin. "That's the problem."

"The forest?" Merlin guessed.

Arthur nodded. "It's in Bayard's territory," he explained. "He'll have archers hidden in the trees, waiting for us – a small troop of them, sent ahead, can reach it far before the rest of his army, and before any of our men. We'll be walking into an ambush. Unless . . ." he drifted off, glancing at Merlin.

Merlin swallowed, realizing this was a test, of sorts. "Unless we can wait for them here," he said, pointing to the spot where the road narrowed just before it plunged into the forest.

"Well," Arthur said with forced heartiness. "It seems you're not entirely useless after all."

"It's a good plan," Merlin said, looking at the road. "You can draw his archers out – maybe pick them off?" Arthur nodded. "Then why are you second guessing yourself?" Merlin asked.

Arthur sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He looked suddenly exhausted. "It's an excellent plan," he said. "There aren't any better options."

"But?" Merlin pressed.

"We won't reach it for another day," Arthur said. His voice sounded hollow. "Bayard's archers should be there tomorrow morning. They'll be able to pick off some of our men while we're getting our troops in place."

It felt as though a lead weight had lodged in Merlin's stomach. "How many?" he asked, taking in the haunted look in Arthur's eyes and his hunched posture.

"Ten. Maybe twenty." Arthur's hand formed a fist on the table, and suddenly Merlin understood why he'd been up all night, searching for another plan. Arthur had lost men before – honestly, Merlin had lost track of how many knights had died in the last year alone – but there was a difference between standing with them in the face of danger and ordering them to sacrifice themselves while he –

A sudden horror prickled at Merlin's spine, and he looked sharply at Arthur. "You are _not_ going to be in range of the archers." Arthur's shoulders tensed, but he didn't respond. "You can't risk yourself that way! It's too dangerous!" He leaned forward, catching Arthur's shoulders, and suddenly Arthur was standing, brushing him off. They glared at each other, standing closer, in the confines of the pavilion, than they would in Arthur's roomier chambers. "You . . . you can't be there," Merlin repeated, but quieter. He kept his chin high, refusing to look away from Arthur's glare.

Arthur was opening his mouth, and closing it. Merlin could practically feel hear the arguments buzzing around in his head. Tension was written in every line of his body, in his chest, rising and falling as though he were winded from fighting, in the closed rams of his fists. With a sudden, inarticulate cry, he turned and slammed his fist down, hard, onto the wooden table. It cracked, loudly, and the maps went flying.

The tent flaps opened, and one of the guards stationed outside stuck his head into the pavilion. "Are you alright, sire?" he asked. Arthur didn't respond. He was leaning over the cracked table, gripping the edges in a white-knuckled grip. His breath was coming in rapid pants.

"He's fine," Merlin said firmly. The guard opened his mouth to protest, but Merlin stepped to the edge of the pavilion, and drew the flaps shut. "We'll call you if anything changes," he said, and turned back to Arthur. The prince had turned to watch, and was sagging forward slightly, a pained look in his eyes that had nothing to do with the bright blood smearing his knuckles. Moving slowly, as though he approached a wild animal, Merlin stepped closer and took Arthur's bleeding hand in his own. "Let me take care of that."

Arthur allowed Merlin to draw him across the tent, to the basin and pitcher sitting on a side table near Arthur's cot. Merlin pressed on his shoulders, and Arthur obediently sat on the edge. Without speaking, Merlin picked up the cloth waiting on the table, and poured a stream of tepid water over it. Arthur's breath hitched a little when Merlin dipped the cloth into the water and pressed it against his bleeding knuckles. As gently as he could, Merlin dabbed the blood away. They both watched the basin water turn pink as he wrung the cloth into it. Merlin washed the wound, then dried it. By the time he'd retrieved the narrow roll of linen bandages in his pack and had started wrapping it around Arthur's hand, snugly, the way Gaius had taught him, the prince's breath had evened, slowed. Merlin glanced at him through his lowered lashes as he cut the bandage from the roll and tied it. The fragile skin beneath Arthur's eyes looked shadowed, and his mouth was an unhappy line.

Merlin wished, suddenly, that he could wrap his arms around Arthur, pull him against his chest and tell him that everything would be okay. He wondered if anyone had held Arthur before. He couldn't imagine Uther ever embracing his son. Yet Merlin could only imagine Arthur's reaction if he followed through with the impulse. Instead, he turned down the covers on Arthur's cot, and busied himself pulling Arthur's nightclothes from his travel bag. Tentatively, he reached for the ties to Arthur's tunic. Arthur didn't respond to the unspoken request, but he didn't protest as Merlin began to undress him. Merlin let his hands linger on Arthur's skin a second longer than usual as he helped the prince into his nightclothes. He hoped that Arthur could take some measure of comfort from the brush of his fingers. For his part, Arthur allowed Merlin to press him down onto the mattress and pull the blankets over him. His eyes followed Merlin as the servant crossed back to the table, and crouched to retrieve the maps that had fallen.

The candle had splattered when Arthur punched the table – wax spotted the wood and the creased parchment – but had, miraculously, remained upright. Merlin couldn't imagine what Arthur would do if he'd managed to catch the maps on fire. Even so, they were in bad shape. The one on top had a tear running through the forest where Bayard's men were setting up their ambush. In the flickering light of the candle, with his back to Arthur, Merlin dared to press his hand over the torn parchment.

"_Feormian daerst renian,_" he whispered, and the map mended itself.

"What was that?" Arthur asked.

"Just thinking," Merlin said. He blew out the candle, leaving them in sudden darkness. By feel, he navigated his way back across the pavilion, and knelt to collect his own nightclothes from his pack. He changed and climbed into his bedroll with his back to Arthur, but he could feel the prince's eyes on him in the dark.

"For what it's worth," Arthur said, when the silence between them had stretched for so long that Merlin thought he'd already drifted asleep. "Sir Ector agrees with you." Before Arthur had grown old enough to take on the honour, Ector had been Uther's first knight. One of the oldest men in the war march, Ector was also one of the best strategists in the army. Merlin had seen him arguing with Arthur earlier that day. "I'm the best warrior in our army," Arthur continued, speaking matter-of-factly, without pride. "He says it would damage us too much if I got killed before I could take any of them down with me."

"He's right," Merlin said, rolling over in his bedroll. In the dark, he could barely make out Arthur's huddled form.

"I know," Arthur said, after a long moment. His voice was barely a whisper. "I just . . ." he drifted off unhappily. If he'd been on the floor, instead of a cot, Merlin might have dared to reach out and touch his arm.

As it was, he said, feebly, "Your men will understand."

"Will they?" Arthur asked.

"They love you," Merlin said, fervently. "They're prepared to die for you."

Arthur sighed heavily. "I just . . . I wish I could be there with them."

"I know," Merlin said, and felt vaguely guilty for his intense relief that Arthur _wouldn't_ be on the frontlines.

They lost seventeen men the first day.

Arthur listened to the reports with a pained expression. From where he knelt picking stones and dried mud out of the war stallion's hooves, Merlin couldn't hear what he said in response to Sir Ector, who'd told him the news, but he saw Arthur's lips tight him, and watched him relay a string of orders in reply. When Ector left, Merlin rose, intending to go to Arthur, but the prince turned, as if sensing his concern, and held him off with a wave of his hand.

"If my horse develops a limp, I'm holding you personally responsible, Merlin!" Arthur snapped, and disappeared into the pavilion alone. Merlin sighed, and squeezing the stallion's hairy fetlock, coaxed the horse to lift his foot once more.

That morning, Merlin only caught quick glimpses of Arthur as he strode from one end of the camp to the other, checking in with his knights and issuing orders to anyone in shouting distance. But shortly after noon, Arthur suddenly appeared at Merlin's side where he was bent over a mortar and pestle, pounding herbs for Gaius.

"You there!" Arthur snapped at an idle stable boy. "Take over for him!" And catching Merlin by the wrist, he dragged him into the pavilion. "Suit me up," Arthur said, sending Merlin stumbling towards his armour with a little shove. "We've picked off the last of the archers."

"You're fighting?" Merlin asked, as he pulled the quilted gambeson over Arthur's head.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "It's a war, Merlin, of course I'm fighting." An eager gleam shone in his eyes, and he sounded more cheerful than he had in days – Merlin knew that he was itching to pay Bayard back for the seventeen men they'd lost to his archers.

"I'm coming with you," Merlin decided as he tied Arthur's gorget on over his mail.

"Absolutely not!"

Merlin glared at him, gripping Arthur's vambrace in his hands. "You let me come when you fought the dragon," he pointed out.

Arthur crossed his arms. "That was different. This is a war, Merlin. I don't trust you not to trip over your own feet and kill one of my knights."

"I could help you!" Merlin protested.

"No." Arthur pulled the vambrace from Merlin's grip, and shoved his arm through it, glaring at Merlin all the while.

"But—"

"I said no, Merlin! That's an order!" Arthur snatched his helmet from the table and glared at Merlin.

Merlin glared right back, refusing to back down. "You can't stop me."

Arthur pointed his sword at him. "We do not have time for this!" He thrust the sword into his scabbard and, to Merlin's shock, stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Merlin's shoulders. The pointed edge of his couter dug into Merlin's back, his vambrace was cold against Merlin's neck, and he was gripping Merlin's shoulder hard enough to hurt, yet there was intimacy in the moment nonetheless. "Look," Arthur said, giving Merlin a little shake. "If you're out there, I'll be too worried about you to focus properly. Stay here. Please. For me."

Merlin could count on one hand the number of times Arthur had said "please" to him. "All right," he said, miserably.

Arthur squeezed him close, then roughly pushed him aside. "Good," he said brusquely. Pulling on his helmet, he strode out of the tent without a backwards glance. Feeling suddenly cold without Arthur's large body pressed against his side, Merlin watched him go.

Sighing, he turned and began straightening the pavilion, needing to keep his hands busy lest he go insane. Only when he took the ceramic basin outside to empty it did Merlin realize that he could keep his promise to Arthur yet still watch over him. Darting back into the pavilion and tying the flaps shut behind him, he poured a stream of fresh water into the basin and waved his hand over it.

"_Waeter, folge min bebod,_" he whispered, and the water's surface flashed silver. "_Aetie me tha the ic sece . . . Arthur Pendragon!_" And his own reflection in the water faded, replaced by a vision of the battlefield, with Arthur right in the midst of it.

A quick jab of his sword pommel into the pikeman's gut sent his opponent stumbling backwards, and Arthur's next swing, sharp across the knees, had him falling to the ground, howling in pain. Arthur thrust his sword through the other man's heart in a quick motion, and leapt back into a defensive crouch, bringing his shield up. Sweat ran down his face and neck, collecting in a hot pool beneath the cowl of his chain mail, and he tried to calm his breathing, even as he glanced back and forth across the battlefield to choose his next target. Strangely, none of the surrounding Mercian knights charged him. In fact, they stepped backwards slightly, lowering their helmeted heads in deference.

For a confused moment, Arthur thought they feared to face him after his quick defeat of the pikeman. Then a shadow fell over him, and he realized it wasn't him they were acknowledging at all. Turning, he saw a lithe knight advancing across the battlefield towards him. The quiet economy of the knight's movement seemed familiar, and Arthur strained to remember if he'd faced him in a tourney. The knight wore no arms -- not even the crest of Mercia. Lifting a blade of polished steel, the knight stared down its length at Arthur through brown eyes heavily rimmed in kohl. Only then did Arthur recognize his opponent.

"Morgause," he said, tightness coiling in the pit of his stomach.

"Arthur Pendragon," she acknowledged, and charged.

He swung his sword up to meet hers, and the blades collided with a shower of sparks. She attacked and he parried; once, twice, three times their swords met in the space between them. Stepping back, they circled, each looking for a weakness in the other's stance. Feinting a jab to the left, Arthur brought his sword in a long, low arch towards her right side. She ignored his feint, blocking his swing with a parry of her own. Again they stepped back, circling.

"You could just incinerate me," Arthur taunted. "Or turn me into a toad."

"I don't need magic to defeat you," she said. Spinning forward, she swung at him; Arthur raised his sword to parry, but when their blades met with none of the force of their earlier blows, he realized that the strike had not been the purpose of her spin at all. Her foot came out in a quick jab, boot catching him in the stomach, and he stumbled backwards gasping for breath. She was on him in a second, raining down blow after blow. He blocked them, but clumsily, gasping for breath.

Again, they circled.

"Here you are, fighting for your father," she said. "The same father who killed your mother. I'm amazed at your callousness."

"_Magic_ killed my mother," he growled, holding himself back. She was trying to taunt him, hoping that he'd strike out in anger, unplanned and unguarded.

"I suppose Uther told you that."

Breathing hard, he shifted his grip on his sword, refusing to take the bait. "My father taught me to be wary of magic," he said, and lunged forward, swinging. She deflected his blow, and their blades ground together in a shriek of metal, sparks flying.

Glaring at him over their joined blades, she spat, "You profess to hate magic, yet here you are, fighting for the Lady Morgana, herself a sorceress."

"You lie!" Using his greater strength, Arthur forced their joined blades upwards while she bore down. Her breath came as heavily as Arthur's, and sweat had smeared the kohl around her eyes. It ran like tear-tracks down the fragile skin of her eyes to disappear inside her helmet. She bore down on the sword with all her strength, trying to force him back. "Morgana is not a sorceress," he grunted, and ducked backwards, letting the force of her own momentum send her stumbling forward. He jabbed up with his blade, landing a blow to her stomach. But she'd recovered her balance, leaping backwards, and what should have been a fatal strike only cut her shallowly.

She glanced down at the blood welling up between the links of her chain mail, and her eyes narrowed in anger. "Morgana is my sister!" she snapped. "Did Uther tell you that? The two of us share the same mother."

"Lies!" he barked, voice hoarse with anger because he knew that she was right. She tilted her head to the side, eyes sparkling with hostility, just like Morgana in an argument, and Arthur wondered how he'd failed to see it before. Morgause was tan where Morgana was pale, her hair was golden, where Morgana's was dark. But they shared the same delicate bone structure and stunning beauty, and more than that, they shared the same strength of spirit. Rage boiled up in Arthur, not at Morgause, but at his father, who'd lied to him, lied to Morgana.

"Lies!" he roared again, and lunged forward, where she was waiting for him. Morgause deflected his clumsy blow easily, and struck him hard, blade pressing through the linked chains of his mail to connect with his stomach in a meaty thwack. Arthur doubled over, grimacing in pain, and Morgause landed another blow to his shoulders, sending him sprawling. His helmet rolled off with a clatter of steel that nearly deafened him, and he lost his blade. Slowly, his movements dulled by pain, Arthur rolled onto his back and scooted backwards, gloved fingers scrambling for his sword.

Morgause's heavy boot slammed down on his hand, and he whimpered despite himself, feeling one of his fingers breaking. Throwing off her own helmet, she smirked down at him, her blonde hair falling in a dishevelled mess around her face.

"What else has Uther neglected to tell you?" she asked. "Let me think."

Arthur tried to roll upwards, but she ground down on his damaged hand, and he stilled, nausea rising in his stomach.

"Oh yes," Morgause said. "Now I remember." In a lithe motion, she knelt, bringing her sword to Arthur's throat. "Morgana and I share the same mother," she said. "But you, dear Arthur . . . you and I share the same father."

Arthur blinked up at her, eyes wide, and she smiled, knowing he could read the truth in her face. "I would have preferred you as an ally, little brother," she said. "But I'm afraid you chose the wrong side." And lifting her sword, she swung it in a shining arc towards Arthur's throat . . . an inch away from his skin, the blade stilled, sparks rising from the air around it as though it pressed against an invisible wall.

From behind them, the last voice Arthur expected to hear said, "Morgause! Stop!"

Morgause turned, and Arthur lifted his head, struggling painfully back onto his elbows. They both stared in surprise at Merlin, who stood a few feet away.

He wore no armour, neither did he carry a sword. Yet he stood confidently, legs planted shoulder-width apart, his hands hanging at his sides. His face held an expression Arthur had never seen before -- lips pressed in a narrow line, and blue eyes blazing with anger.

"You!" Morgause spat, and stepped away from Arthur, raising her sword. "I have looked forward to killing you."

"Yeah?" Merlin said, and even wounded, Arthur rolled his eyes at the bravado in his manservant's voice. "Well, you're going to have to keep looking forward to it, because that's not going to happen today. I'm not dying here, and neither is Arthur." On the ground, Arthur grimaced, not in pain, but at the thought that he was going to see Merlin slaughtered in front of him. He'd feared that his last sight might be Merlin's tear-stained face leaning over him, but this was worse, infinitely worse. He'd told Merlin to stay at the camp site!

"You are awfully mouthy for a servant," Morgause said, advancing towards him.

"I'm not just a servant," Merlin said, squaring his shoulders. He spared a sad glance at Arthur, who glared back at him, making a gesture with his good hand that clearly said, "run", though Merlin failed to see it. Merlin was rubbish at reading his hand signs. Then, with a bitter smile and an apologetic shrug, Merlin lifted his own hand, and his eyes went golden.

"_Forbaerne! Acwele!_

A ball of fire rolled off his fingers, roaring towards Morgause. She threw her sword aside and lifted her own hand, her eyes glowing as golden as her hair. The ball of flame engulfed Morgause, and on the ground, Arthur scuttled backwards, his armour glowing with the heat and his eyes stinging with acrid smoke. When the fire cleared a moment later, Morgause stood unharmed, though her face was black with soot.

Glaring up at Merlin, she snarled, "_Ahries_!" and he fell backwards, as if knocked by an invisible hand. Another spell sent a bolt of crackling green energy shooting towards Merlin; he rolled to one side, and it singed the ground where he'd been.__

Clambering back onto his feet, Merlin cried, "_Ic bebeode thisne sweord!_" and Morgana's sword lifted from the ground and threw itself at her. She leapt to one side, but it caught her shoulder, drawing a line of blood.

The Mercian knights stepped forward to assist her, and through his pain, Arthur felt a pang of indignation that they clearly considered _Merlin_ to be a bigger threat to her than he'd been. Without glancing back, Merlin waved his hand, and a ring of fire enveloped the three of them, cutting the knights off. Morgause lifted her hands, golden light lingering on her fingers and blazing in her eyes. She hesitated momentarily, watching Merlin with calculating eyes. Then she loosed the spell, not at Merlin, but at Arthur.

Pain lit along the length of his spinal cord, licking up and down the nerves of his arms and legs like tendrils of fire. This was worse than the wound in his stomach, worse than the broken bones, worse than the Questing Beast's bite, worse than any injury Arthur had ever had. His body resonated with the pain, taut and swollen. Arthur threw back his head and screamed, barely recognizing the sound that escaped his throat.

Fury twisted Merlin's face, and he turned on Morgause, fear and anger throbbing red-hot in his head.

"No!" he cried, the force of his anger throwing her backwards into the fire. She screamed, eyes glowing golden as she scrambled to shield herself from the flames. Merlin stepped forward, his hands rising instinctively. Glancing skyward, he reached, not for any of the spells from Gaius' s book, but for pure, raw power. He felt it throbbing in the earth beneath him like a heartbeat, slow and steady. He felt it curling against his skin with the wind, dancing in the flames behind him, flowing like water in the sweat beading his temples and the blood moving through his veins. Merlin reached for it, reached for it all.

Morgause stepped from the flames, singed and smouldering with fury, but otherwise unharmed. Her eyes glowed gold with magic and the reflected fire, and she lifted her hand -- but Merlin was faster. Wordlessly, he pointed at Morgause and the ground beneath her feet began to crumble.

A crack opened in the earth before and spread, opening wider and wider, a chasm that shook its way across the battlefield. It spread beneath the feet of the advancing Mercian army, and their front line fell with a flurry of screams and scraping mail. Among the sea of blue cloaks falling into the fissure, Merlin caught a few glimpses of Camelot red. Regret gnawed him, but distantly, like an insect bite. His attention was focussed on Morgause. She'd stumbled, falling, but again, her reflexes had saved her. She clung now to the edge of the chasm, fingers scrabbling for a hold in the muddy ground below. With a grunt of exertion, she flung one arm up. The metal plate around her elbow caught in the earth, giving her enough leverage to manoeuvre her other arm to a better grip. She began to lift herself back onto solid ground, but with a glare from Merlin, the dirt beneath her crumbled.

"This isn't over!" she cried. She muttered a spell, inaudible over the crumbling earth and Arthur's screams, then her eyes flashed golden and she disappeared.

Merlin scrambled to Arthur's side. Arthur was still screaming, curled tight into a foetal position.

"_Ablinnen_," Merlin murmured, dropping to his knees. Arthur shuddered as Morgause's spell ended, and he let out a whimper, voice ragged. His shoulders shook with sobs and the memory of pain.

"Shhh," Merlin said, brushing the sweaty fringe away from Arthur's brow. He bit his lip at Arthur's broken hand, at the sticky pool of blood bubbling up between the links of Arthur's mail. "It's over," Merlin said, trying to keep his fear from his voice. "Arthur, it's over. You're going to be okay."

Arthur blinked up at him, eyes wide with pain and fear. Around them, the knights were beginning to recover their senses, staggering to their feet and staring at the ground beneath them suspiciously. Merlin ignored them, ignored the fire still dancing around them, and stroked Arthur's face, trying to smile reassuringly.

"Mll . . . Merlin?" Arthur managed, his voice weak with pain.

"Don't move," Merlin said, resting a hand on Arthur's chest. "You're going to be okay." Lifting his head, he shouted, "Send for Gaius!" He hoped one of the soldiers outside of their ring of protective fire could hear him.

He knew the spell Morgause had used on Arthur. Although excruciating, it wasn't fatal. No, Merlin's main concern was the sword wound Arthur had taken to the stomach. Hands shaking from fear and exhaustion, he reached for the edge of Arthur's chainmail, then hesitated, afraid to peel it off and hurt Arthur even more.

Instead, he whispered, "_Tospringe,_" and the steel links split beneath his finger as he drew it down the centre of Arthur's chest and over his stomach. Spreading the mail aside, he repeated the spell to cut through the heavy, quilted gambeson, soiled with sweat and blood. Merlin drew in a breath at the sight of the wound.

"That bad, huh?" Arthur said, shock slurring his words. He struggled onto his elbows, ignoring Merlin's feeble attempts to keep him down. Biting his lip, Arthur glanced down at his own stomach. He blanched at the sight, but tried to keep his expression composed, though Merlin could see the wild edge of fear in his eyes. "It's fatal," he said dully. "I'm going to die."

"No!" Merlin said. Tears pricked behind his eyelids, and he blinked, feeling them slide hot and wet down his cheeks.

Arthur glared up at him, shaking his head. "You weren't s'posed to cry," he murmured. "I told you . . . no man is worth your tears."

"Shut up!" Merlin snapped. Clumsily, he untied his neckerchief and pressed the blue linen to Arthur's wound. He'd never been much good at healing spells -- Gauis forbade him from practicing on patients, even unconscious ones -- but now he pressed his hands to Arthur's stomach, imagining tendrils of golden light moving from his fingers into Arthur's body.

"You are not. going. to die," he ground out, willing it so. "I won't let you."

Beyond the wall of flame, the battle was drawing to a close. Morgause's defeat had upset the Mercian knights. Camelot was rallying, her knights spurred to fervour by the sight of their prince trapped behind the circle with a sorcerer. The sounds of battle -- the clang of steel on sword and shield, the thunder of hooves, the cries of dying men -- rose to a cacophony. Merlin barely heard it. His entire attention was focussed on Arthur, whom he'd shifted into his arms, head resting in Merlin's lap. Merlin gripped his shoulder with his left hand. His right rested on Arthur's bare stomach.

The first, hesitant tendrils of magic that Merlin had sent into the wound had turned into a wave of golden light, unfurling from his fingers and washing through Arthur's body, healing torn muscles and ligaments, rinsing away the threat of infection, and soothing the pain. Arthur grimaced as the wave retreated, and Merlin's free hand stroked his forehead while the other clenched and sent another wave of magic pulsing through Arthur's body. They both inhaled at the sensation, and Arthur's good hand closed over Merlin's wrist, squeezing it. They clung to each other, adrift in the tumbling waves of Merlin's magic.

"You're okay," Merlin whispered to Arthur, over and over again, kept whispering it as the magic ebbed and flowed through them both. He didn't know for sure if it was working until Arthur lifted a shaky hand to brush his fingers against Merlin's cheekbones. He was using his sword hand, the one Morgause had broken. It was bruised now, but whole.

"Your eyes," Arthur breathed raggedly. "They're . . ."

Merlin dared to glance from Arthur's belly to his face, seeing the golden fire of his eyes reflected in the ocean blue of Arthur's own.

Ducking his head, Merlin murmured, "Yeah. Sorry."

At the same time, Arthur breathed, "beautiful."

Blushing, Merlin glanced away, shaken by the open trust and affection in Arthur's normally-guarded face. Cautiously he peeled away the sodden neckerchief, wincing at the wound beneath. It was still there, far too raw for Merlin's liking, but he thought that Arthur would live.

"Prince Arthur!" a voice called, startling them both. It was Geraint. "Sire!" he called again.

Arthur shook his head to clear it, and glanced around, for the first time noticing the walls of flame surrounding them. He lifted an eyebrow at Merlin, who blinked back at him for a moment, uncomprehending, then blushed.

"Oh," said Merlin. "Right." He waved a hand, and the flames disappeared.

"Idiot," Arthur muttered fondly. The hand still resting on Merlin's cheek fluttered, lifted, and swatted at him, weak as a kitten. "You shun . . . shouldn't've stepped in. I could've taken her."

Merlin only rolled his eyes.

Now that the flames were gone, the knights trickled in past the singed circle of earth, carefully skirting the gaping chasm. Geraint reached them first, his eyes widening at the sight of Arthur's split armour. Merlin tensed, but Geraint only gave him a suspicious look before falling on his knees beside Arthur and taking his hand.

"We won, Sire," he said, bowing over it. "Gaius is on his way."

"Excellent," Arthur murmured, eyes flickering open. "Good job."

Around them, the whispers were starting, rising up around them like a gentle wind, until one voice grew louder, throwing out a word that skittered over the scattered bodies and weapons of the battlefield like a leaf over cobblestone. _Sorcery_, it said, and _sorcery_, other voices echoed back, and the zephyr became a hurricane, shrill with panic.

Arthur whispered something, but his voice was too weak for Merlin to hear over the sudden noise of the knights, the pounding of his heart. Biting his lip, he leaned closer, bringing his ear close to Arthur's mouth.

"Run," Arthur gasped.

Merlin swallowed, glancing at the slowly advancing knights, at the sea of angry faces.

"Damn you," Arthur growled, anger strengthening his voice. "For once in your life, just do as I say. Go. Now!"

A large hand closed over Merlin's shoulder, wrenching him backwards, away from Arthur.

"Get your treasonous hands off him!" Sir Ector barked.

Arthur's hand slipped from Merlin's fingers, and Merlin twisted away from the grip, staring helplessly back at Arthur, who was struggling up onto his elbows, ignoring Geraint's pleas to hold still. His gaze stayed locked with Merlin's.

"Run," Arthur mouthed. His eyes were desperate, pleading, and that alone spurred Merlin into action.

"_Haetende,_" Merlin hissed, and Ector howled as the sword in his hand grew red hot. He thrust Merlin away from him like a snake, stumbling backwards. Merlin snatched one more desperate glance at Arthur, turned, and ran.

"Go after him!" Ector shouted, but Arthur groaned loudly, distracting those closest to him. They glanced back at him, torn between the sorcerer and their injured prince. Seizing his chance, Merlin fled. Gauntleted arms flung out to catch him, but he was quick, and unencumbered by armour. Propelling himself forward with pumping arms and adrenaline singing in his veins, Merlin flew over the chasm with a leap and took off towards the forest at a dead run.

Arthur fell backwards for good measure, letting himself whimper a little. His diversion worked -- the knights closest to him gathered closer, while those on the farthest edges took off after Merlin, but slowly, glancing back at Arthur as they went. Not trusting their armoured bodies to jump over the ravine, they skirted around it, giving Merlin more time to run. Arthur stared after Merlin's retreating back until the forest swallowed him.


	2. Chapter 2

**You are lonely, my friend, because you are . . .  
Rilke**

Merlin ran until his lungs burned and his thighs ached. Steadying himself against the rough bark of an oak tree, he vomited into the grass, shook himself, and started to run again. He finally dared to stop beside a spring, where he plunged his face into the water and took desperate, thirsty gulps.

Collapsing back on the grass, he reached for the hem of his shirt to mop his face, only to drop it as he saw the red stain from where he'd held Arthur.

"Please be okay," Merlin whispered. "Please."

Angrily, he pulled off the soiled linen and bunched it up in his hand.

"Okay," he told it. "I need to know how Arthur is."

_"Fleogenda blodgeotenda!_" The words coiled out of him, easy and sibilant, and he watched as the stained and rumpled fabric shook itself and transformed into a sparrow, its tiny heart beating frantically against Merlin's hand.

The sparrow squawked, scrabbling to get away but unable to right itself. It was injured, Merlin realized, the small, buff-coloured feathers on its abdomen matted thick with blood.

"Here's the deal," Merlin told it, barely noticing that the words coming out of his lips weren't in any language he'd ever learned to speak. "If you get better, so does he. If not . . . "

Merlin swallowed.

"Well, we must wait and see," said Gaius, bandaging the last of Arthur's wounds. "But it looks like Merlin's managed to speed your healing considerably."

Arthur nodded, woodenly, feeling anxious, weak, and unbearably helpless as he lay back in the private tent the servants had hurriedly turned into his sick room.

He wanted to be angry with Merlin, he realized. He wanted to feel sickened by Merlin's treachery, by finally realizing what Merlin's sullen moods and furtive silences had concealed. Anger would make this all more bearable; he wouldn't worry so much that the knights, already searching, might find Merlin -- if he were angry enough, he might even want them to find him. Anger might mean that all was right with the world, that magic was evil and Uther's pursuit of it just. But Arthur's body, wounded, weakened as it was, couldn't manage anger. He still _felt_ Merlin's magic, pooling golden and warm in his gut, still knitting the wounded flesh together and standing guard against infection. Merlin's eyes had gleamed so golden on the battlefield as he cradled Arthur in the warm, protective circle of his arms. Arthur couldn't remember ever having been held that way. It should be humiliating -- a grown man, a prince, held by his manservant in front of all his knights -- and that humiliation should feed the anger all the more.

Arthur felt like some new awareness had woken in him. It was like finding a cut or a scrape, some wound so small that one couldn't even remember receiving it -- yet, once found, it nagged on the mind until one could scarcely pay attention to anything else. Losing Merlin, watching him disappear into the woods like that, it felt like losing a piece of himself, as though he and Merlin were joined somehow, two sides of the same coin. Arthur felt dizzy, sick at the thought of never seeing him again. Yet if the knights found him, if they dragged him back to camp, or worse, killed him on the spot -- that was unthinkable.

"Shall I put out the light, sire?" Gius asked, hesitating at the doorway. Arthur shook his head.

One by one the lamps across the war camp were extinguished, except for Arthur's. He keeping vigil lest a search party should spot Merlin and raise the alarm, stayed awake through the changing of the guard outside his tent at midnight.

The moon sank beneath the limbs of an elm, and a thin rain began to fall, splashing Merlin's nose and eyelids 'til he woke, sputtering, in the darkness and realized that he'd collapsed in the hollow beneath the great tree's roots. He flailed, feeling he was drowning in the flood of darkness, in the mud soaking his trousers and oozing through the worn patches in his boots, in the rain, stronger now, slicking Merlin's hair to his scalp and running in rivulets down his bare chest. Goose flesh shivered on his arms, and his nipples were pebbled from the cold. In his lap, his shirt (still a sparrow), slept fitfully, feathers plastered to its side with blood. Merlin closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the tree trunk. His body shook with fear, hunger and cold.

Nothing stirred in the forest as far as he could see. Only in the distant edges of the woods did a trio of knights, cast apart from the army (Sir Ector was directing the search in Arthur's obvious delirium), venture through the slight deer trails of the forest. They carried lanterns, which they held before them. Sheltered beneath the glass, their tallow candles flickered bravely, sending cautious beams of light to the upper branches of the oak overhead and down into its slippery roots, as if asking each dark space, have you seen him? They flickered briefly in the eyes of a watchful lynx, caught the silhouette of the bat as it swooped low after a field mouse, paused before a cave where the brown bear sheltered with her cubs, all of them shrinking back into the darkness. Did the warlock shelter with them? the candles asked. Had they seen him? Sheltering fitfully inside their glass lanterns, the candles wondered how long their fragile flames could endure before the wind worked its way inside, blowing them out.

So the knights directed the candlelight with clumsy footfalls over root and under limb. But here, where Merlin shivered in the cold embrace of the elm tree's roots, here, surely, their light must cease. Whatever else the candles illuminated with their flickering light, the darkness surrounding Merlin held steadfast. It wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak, heavy and thick with shadows. You may think it magic, and it was, in a way, though he would not recognize it as such. If it were magic, it was the magic of a wounded creature slinking into the quiet oblivion of death, the magic of a child crying herself to sleep after enduring more disappointment than she'd thought her little heart could bear, the magic of the oak tree which endures the harsh winds by digging its roots deeper into the earth, the magic of a troubled soul retreating to the quiet, dark sanctuary in the furthest reaches of the mind. It was, in short, the magic which compels all wounded creatures to retreat until they've died or grown stronger.

Eventually, the knights gave up and returned to camp, unsuccessful.

[Here, the candle which had stood awake with Arthur through the long night sputtered, drowning in a pool of its own wax and leaving him alone in the darkness.]

One night isn't so very long. Darkness laps like a wave onto the narrowing shore of day, the moon rises and falls, the owl alights from her hiding place and sails overhead like a ghost in talon and feather and soon enough returns, full of mouse or insect as the first, blushing arms of dawn stretch and meet the morning. Yet Merlin's night stretched on for eternity.

If you have ever lain awake at night seeking sleep but unable to find it, feeling the weight of sleepless hours pressing on your weary body while your mind races on, unrelenting, then you know some measure of the ache and exhaustion Merlin felt as he curled beneath the elm tree. Now imagine facing that dark expanse of wakefulness without clock or candle, without even the stars overhead, for they waited patiently behind the rainclouds. A spider stepped from a fallen leaf onto Merlin's bare arm, on which he pillowed his head; it paused there for a moment or maybe an hour, tapping its foreleg against his clammy skin while it debated building its web there and Merlin debated sneaking back to camp in the morning to check on Arthur and tell him -- what? Thank you for letting me escape, Sire, but you see, I can't really imagine my life without you now, so if you don't mind, I'd like to come back to Camelot and take my chances with the executioner, thanks. Merlin twitched miserably. The spider chose instead to spin in the high grass near Merlin's ear.

By the time the rain stopped, the ground and Merlin were already soaked. His wet trousers clung to his thighs, and his skin felt damp and sticky. He tried to dry himself with magic, but when he reached for his power, it sank further away from him, trapped beneath a sea of exhaustion that ran even deeper than his physical weariness to lap against the edges of his soul. Merlin had asked a lot from his magic before, but never quite so much in such a short period. Fighting Morgause and healing Arthur had left him shaken and empty, and that was before his long, stumbling run through the woods and the subsequent transformation of his shirt. If the sparrow realized that the very fact of its existence left Merlin bare-chested and cold, it didn't particularly care -- Merlin had managed to shelter it with his hand, and it nestled, quite comfortably, in a bed of leaves he'd gathered for it, asleep and dreaming jumbled fragments of bloodstains, buttons, and loose threads. Merlin was glad that one of them, at least, could sleep.

The soggy carpet of wet leaves clung, cold and slimy, to his bare flank. He'd given up trying to keep his arms and chest warm, and wished bitterly that he'd thought to grab his jacket before running onto the battlefield to save Arthur's life. Merlin wasn't a stranger to sleeping in the woods, but he'd always put a bit more planning into it first.

Near dawn, a strange sound penetrated Merlin's wall of self pity, and he blinked, shifting uncomfortably. The sound surrounded him, a low, thrumming hiss like an indrawn breath that resonated through the ground beneath him. Blinking, he brought one ear to the ground, and the sound intensified. His veins sang with it. When he finally realized what he heard, Merlin gave a dry and shaky laugh, and stretched full-length with his ear to the ground to listen more deeply. The trees were drawing moisture from the ground, siphoning it in through their roots and pumping it up through the vast trunks, where the branches waited expectantly above, leaves trembling in the breeze like hundreds of tiny, thirsty mouths. He could hear the soft suck of the elm's roots so near his head, feel the water moving beneath the bark's surface like blood through his veins, strengthening the tree and soothing its thirst. Merlin closed his eyes and breathed with the elm, and its roots shifted for him, making a more comfortable hollow in which he could rest. He could almost imagine he was part of the tree, a strange, fleshy protuberance. He breathed in with the roots. He breathed out with the leaves. The fingers of his left hand spread, intuitively, burrowing beneath the carpet of wet and mouldy leaves to find the rich, dark soil below. Magic pulsed in the ground below his fingers, and Merlin's last sensation before falling asleep was of magic seeping in through his hand and dripping slowly into the well he'd depleted.

[The prince's screams roused the war camp, and Gaius hurried into the pavilion to find Arthur arching up in bed with angry, red lines of infection stretching like fingers from his wound up towards his heart . . . and glowing gold lines of magic stretching down from his heart to meet them.]

With the castle half empty and servants hurrying through the knights' chambers as though the rooms were haunted already, with Uther stalking to his throne every morning and barking judgments upon the peasants who came for an audience, a few advanced scouts of the army blustered into the courtyard with considerably less fanfare than they'd left it, strode tight-lipped to the throne room, and set Camelot into an uproar as nobles and peasants alike prepared for the return of their soldiers and their wounded prince. Before the rest of the army reached the castle gates, the story had grown and shifted until Arthur had Morgause at swordpoint, begging for her life, when Merlin burst into the battlefield with an explosion of flames, wounded the prince, and helped the sorceress escape.

Children who'd once lobbed rotten vegetables at Merlin in the stocks whispered now of flung carrots or turnip heads that used to turn, inches from the sorcerer's face, and whip back towards the thrower. Margot in the kitchens, who'd flirted with Merlin as he came in for Arthur's breakfast every morning and slipped him tarts on feast nights, now swore that Merlin once changed into a rat and crept into her chambers to watch her bathe -- "As if you wouldn't have invited him right in," Gwen said, and the serving girls all laughed. Merchants hawking their wares in the market found renewed interest in their old story of how, upon his first meeting with Merlin, Arthur had tripped over crates and caught his mace overhead as the two of them fought, though now nobody mentioned that Merlin had begun the fight by protesting Arthur's mistreatment of a servant -- instead, the prince now recognized Merlin at once as the sorcerer he was and attacked him. By the time four grim-faced knights carried the prince's litter up the stairs and rolled him gently into his own bed, nearly everyone in Camelot agreed that Arthur had been enchanted, his kind nature (even servants who'd borne the brunt of his temper seemed to forget that they'd once viewed Arthur as a bully) fooled by Merlin's duplicity.

Only the tiny storage room off Gaius' chambers retained some memory of the true Merlin. The things he'd left behind -- a carved wooden dragon waiting on his night table, a pair of Arthur's breeches needing to be patched, a book of magic carefully wrapped and hidden beneath a loose floorboard -- these alone kept the shape of him alive in the castle and in the emptiness of his room, indicating how he'd once filled his time here; how nimble fingers once had polished Arthur's mail, sharpened Arthur's sword, mended Arthur's clothes and otherwise busied themselves making Arthur's life easier -- although, when Gwen slipped into that room for a moment away from the rumours, she wondered how many of his chores he'd accomplished through magic. Gwen didn't doubt that Merlin was a sorcerer. It explained too much about her friend. Merlin had always been secretive -- before, Gwen had assumed it had something to do with the way his eyes followed Arthur when he thought nobody was looking. However, Gwen couldn't conceive of any circumstances that would make Merlin harm Arthur, sorcerer or not. Whatever had happened on the battlefield, she'd wait to form her own opinion until she heard Arthur's account of it.

Gwen started for the door, then hesitated, taking a last glance inside Merlin's room. Like all servants, Merlin had few possessions, and from the looks of things, he'd taken most of them with him. Only the dragon on the night table remained. It seemed a simple thing, a child's toy, and Gwen wondered how he'd gotten it and why he'd left it here. For a moment, she wondered if maybe he'd left it because he feared it getting broken on the journey to Mercia. Perhaps she should take it with her, keep it safe for him. She hesitated, turning the dragon around in her hand. It was rough, quickly carved. With a shrug, she placed the dragon back on the night table. She'd ask Arthur about it later. For now, Gwen left the room to its memories and secrets and shut the door behind her.

As he bit his lip (the red, inflamed lines of infection burned, and his wound was a weeping mess) and groaned ("Merlin," he whimpered, and _"Merlin,"_ and Uther's hands clenched at his side at this further proof of sorcery - Arthur wanted to stand up, wanted to explain, but he was witless, hallucinating, and he knew it), as he winced beneath Gaius' clinical ministrations and weakly squeezed Gwen's hand when she sat with him, Arthur heard only fragments of the conversations in the room around him.

_"Sire," Gaius said, polite but strained, "I don't think this spell was intended to hurt Arthur. Quite the opposite, actually -- it seems to be fighting his infection."_

"I don't trust it," Uther snapped. "This is sorcery. It must be stopped."

"Merlin lied about his magic," Gaius persisted, "but I can't believe he'd ever harm Arthur. He's risked his life many times to save him."

"That boy had both of you fooled," Uther said. "The sooner he is dead, the better."

"No!" Arthur cried, struggling to sit up, but the movement shifted the torn muscles in his stomach, and his initial shout of anger grew into a wail of pain before Gaius' cold fingers settled on his jaw, forcing his mouth open. Arthur choked on the syrup of pungent valerian oil Gaius poured down his throat. His eyes screwed shut as he coughed, and when he opened them again, Gaius was gone, and Gwen sat next to him. When she saw his eyes open, she smiled wanly and squeezed his hand.

"Merlin?" he asked, struggling to sit up. Arthur remembered the last conversation he'd overheard, and panic cut through the muddled fog his injury and Gaius' potion had left in his mind. Gwen soothed him with a hand on her shoulder. She caught his eyes, and jerked her head pointedly towards the door in warning.

Leaning close, she whispered, _"They haven't found him yet. The knights have been looking for days, but they haven't seen a trace of him. It's okay." _

Relief flooded him in a rush of warmth, and he fell back against the pillows, limp. Gwen brushed his fringe away from his eyes, and the warmth and worry of her smile followed him back into sleep.

In his dream, Merlin strokes his hair and cradles him close, like he did that afternoon on the battlefield. His eyes are shining gold and strangely beautiful. Arthur reaches to touch his cheek, and knows he's dreaming, because the smile Merlin turns on him then isn't tight or forced, but wide and dimpled, full of cheer.

"It's okay," Merlin says. "Everything is going to be okay, Arthur."

"But you're a warlock!" Arthur protests, and Merlin laughs.

"Trust me," he says, and God help him, Arthur does.

In his dream, Merlin is running again into the woods, fleeing the battlefield, but this time, Arthur lurches to his feet and takes off after him. Blood pounds in his ears and his breath comes in short, harsh gasps, but still he only makes out flashes of long limbs and dark hair through the trees. Then it isn't Merlin he chases, but a handsome stag. Its hooves throw up sparks as gold as Merlin's eyes whenever they land on a rock. Arthur isn't alone, but leading a hunting party. Hounds streak through the woods before him, and his crossbow is heavy in his hands. Finally, the stag pauses on a rocky outcrop, sunlight glinting on its antlers, and Arthur drops to his knees and steadies the crossbow as he aims.

He woke with a gasp as the bolt hit home, his own heart burning in an agony that quickly faded. On his chest and stomach, the red infection lines were gone, finally overcome by the golden threads of Merlin's magic. Light spilled from beneath his bandages, and Arthur tore them off clumsily, watching wide-eyed as the ragged edges of his glowing wound shuddered, met, and sealed. When the gold light finally faded, Arthur's stomach was whole, a faint pink line of scar tissue the only sign of his injury.

Merlin left his boots beneath the elm tree, where they eventually became a snug home for a family of shrew. In his bare feet, he continued on through the forest, relishing the squelch of mud between his toes, the cool, wet press of leaf mulch against his bare skin. Small tendrils of magic sank into the earth through his thick-skinned heels, the balls of his feet, through every bare toe. The earth responded in kind, feeding magic up through them and into Merlin's arteries until his very heart sang with it, power unfolding in his chest like a rose blossom, radiating out through his veins and up through the top of his head. Stifling that sensation with leather was unthinkable -- Merlin couldn't imagine why he'd ever felt the need to protect his feet from _this._ He felt calm and awake, aware in a way he'd never been before. On his shoulder, the sparrow chirped. Merlin turned to look at it, smiling fondly at its white neck and cheeks, at the shining black eyes set in its velvety brown face. The soft buff feathers ran smoothly down the curve of its belly now, the blood washed away by last night's rain and the wound by the Merlin's magic. He hoped this meant that Arthur was now well back in Camelot. The sparrow chirped once more before lifting from Merlin's shoulder in a flash of speckled wings, darting ahead through the trees, to a clearing where the distant song of its cousins promised food, and lots of it.

His stomach grumbled, and Merlin realized that he, too, was hungry -- he didn't know how long he'd lingered beneath the elm tree, drinking in magic like it alone could sustain him, but the last meal he remembered was breakfast back at the war camp: Merlin ate with the other servants, watery gruel, but Arthur had slipped him two sausages, muttering, "Here, since you like them so much -- this way you won't tempted to steal mine." Merlin had grinned and made some joke about Arthur watching his waistline. Then he'd passed one of the sausages to Gaius, and eaten the other himself. Now, Merlin's mouth watered at the memory of that sausage -- fire-blackened casing bursting beneath his teeth to an explosion of hot ground meat flavoured with thyme and rich with fat. His stomach grumbled. Closing his eyes, he sent a tendril of magic into the earth and followed it to where a colony of spores sent up clusters of mushrooms in the dark space beneath an oak tree. He recognized them from hours spent foraging in the forest with his mother: stinkhorn, elf's cap, oyster shell and false bread. Passing over the poisonous varieties, Merlin plucked an elf's cap from the ground, wiped it on his shirt, and bit into it -- not sausage, but the taste felt like heaven to him.

[Arthur, a bit thinner now and with a constant sadness in his eyes, resumed training the knights. They all treated him reverently, almost gingerly at first, and in the first practice bout of the morning, Sir Geraint swung his sword with only half his strength, trying to go easy on the prince. Then Arthur's nostrils flared and he lunged forward; Geraint barely brought his sword up in time to block the furious series of blows that followed. By the end of the round, Geraint, not Arthur, gasped for breath and gratefully submitted to end the onslaught, and all of the knights the field surreptitiously exhaled in relief as Arthur offered him a hand up. Their prince had been wounded, but now he was miraculously well, and none of them were going to complain. The only tense moment came when Sir Gawain, new to the knighthood, offered some sympathetic comment about Arthur's "enchantment" and found himself face down in the dirt, with orders to clean the stables. Those knights who'd witnessed Merlin healing their prince on the battlefield nodded angrily; the rest assumed Arthur was touchy about having been so easily fooled by a sorcerer.]

A prickle of magic along his spine warned him, and he turned to see a wild boar nosing the ground a few feet away. It rushed, and Merlin latched onto the first spell he thought of.

"_Fries stan!_" he cried, throwing up his hand. The boar stiffened in its tracks and froze, entirely stone. Merlin rested his hands on his knees and caught his breath, then straightened and cautiously circled the stone. It was maybe, he had to acknowledge, just a bit of an overreaction. The red fox that had been napping in the underbrush until Merlin and the boar crashed through the bushes, waking it up, gave a sleepy nod of acknowledgment.

"You could have eaten it," the fox said. "That's a waste of good meat."

"Shut up!" Merlin said, but the fox had already drifted back to sleep.

[Arthur's new servant was a short and pudgy boy named Caleb, fifteen if he was a day. His eyes followed Arthur with such obvious hero worship that Arthur's teeth ground together, and he handled Arthur's weapons and armour as if they were holy. Even Merlin had never got his mail to shine so brightly. Every time Arthur gave him an order, Caleb opened and closed his mouth a few times before replying, as if struck dumb by the privilege of addressing him. When his words finally did come, they were almost lost between all the "Sires" and "my lords" tumbling out of his mouth.

Three weeks into Caleb's employment, Kay's squire broke an arm and had to be replaced. Arthur foisted Caleb onto him, and didn't put in for a new manservant.]

Thinking no harm, for Merlin was gone, could never again return to this room where the carved dragon waited on the night table and Arthur's old breeches (he couldn't bear to move them) gathered moths in the corner where Merlin had flung them, intending to mend them upon his return, Arthur took shelter in Merlin's room when he needed to be alone with his thoughts. Sometimes he pretended. He'd lie back on the lumpy mattress (how had Merlin been able to sleep there?), and pretend that Merlin was shirking his duties, avoiding him for some reason, that any minute Merlin would come ambling in and his eyes would widen in guilt at seeing Arthur there, waiting for him. Then Arthur would stand and say something scathing; he'd catch Merlin's wrist and drag him back to his chambers, and never, ever let him go. Daydreaming like that eased the ache in Arthur's chest momentarily, but always, when the door opened, it was Gaius, quiet and respectful, saying, "The king requires your presence, my lord," or "Your highness, it's almost supper time." Then fresh despair welled up in Arthur's eyes, and Gaius recognized it, for that same sorrow bent his shoulders and haunted his mind.

Arthur came to the room so often that Gaius ceased asking if he could help when the prince slipped, quiet and furtive, into his chambers. Instead, the old man only nodded a greeting, and Arthur managed a shaky smile before retreating to Merlin's old room and shutting the door behind him.

They'd only spoken of Merlin's magic once, when Arthur was still recovering from his wound.

"Did you know about his magic?" Arthur had asked, and Gaius had struggled for a response before Arthur held up a hand. "I don't want to implicate you," he added. "I just . . . Gaius, will he be okay? Is he strong enough to evade my father's men?"

Then Gaius' eyes had softened, and he'd rested a kind hand on Arthur's shoulder before replying. "He is, my lord."

Arthur had nodded, and that had been the end of that.

Whenever he could slip away from his duties, Arthur retreated into Merlin's room, where sometimes he pretended, but mostly he just lay on the bed with his arms behind his head and his gaze turned towards the ceiling, grateful to be alone with his loneliness and sorrow. He counted the spider webs in the corners, poked through the dusty boxes of old books and empty bottles that had always shared this room with Merlin (it had been Gaius' store room long before Merlin came to Camelot), stepped a hundred times over the hidden book without ever realizing it, and buried his face in Merlin's blankets, trying to find Merlin's scent in the wool that smelled of dust, of moths, and increasingly now, of Arthur himself. He stroked the carved dragon until his fingers had memorized each knife groove, and wondered how Merlin had got it, if he'd left it here because it was unimportant or because he'd feared it might be lost or broken if he'd taken it to battle with him. When he saw Merlin again (Arthur couldn't bring himself to think "if"), he would ask him about it, about Merlin's magic and this second life he'd lived right under Arthur's nose.

One day, as Arthur holed up in Merlin's room, the door inched open. He sat up, startling, because Gaius was gone for his afternoon rounds and no one else ever came by Merlin's room (the rest of the castle thought it cursed). Arthur's first, half frantic thought was that his father had tracked him down. But it was Gwen who slipped inside, closing the door behind her, Gwen who gasped and brought a hand to her mouth, looking as though Arthur had scared her almost as much as she'd scared him.

"Sorry," she stammered. "I'm sorry, Sire. I'll just --" and she turned to leave. Arthur thought of her father, who'd been executed, and Morgana, off with Morgause, of Lancelot, who'd left, and Merlin, somewhere in the forest, and he realized that Gwen must have come here for the same reason he did.

"Guinevere," he said. "Stay."

He sat up on the bed, swinging his feet to the floor. Gwen hesitated at the door a second longer, then cautiously stepped across the room to sit beside him, blushing a little at being so close. They sat in silence for a while.

"Sometimes I get mad at him," she confessed quietly. "I shouldn't, I mean I know why he kept it secret, of course he kept it secret, but still, I get so angry that he lied to me. That he's gone." She twisted her hands in her lap. "And then I hate myself for being angry with him," she said quietly. "I know it's silly, but --"

"No," breathed Arthur. "Believe me, I understand."

He slipped an arm around her, cautiously, and she rested her head on his shoulder. She smelled of wood smoke and violets, and Arthur breathed her in deeply. He should have sought her out, he realized; Merlin was her friend, as much as Arthur's. Of course she missed him. They sat in silence, missing Merlin, until finally she smiled, ruefully.

"I should get back to work."

"Me, too," Arthur admitted.

She brushed a kiss across his cheek, lips feather-soft, before slipping away. Arthur lingered in the room a few moments longer.

After that, when they could both get away, they met each other in Merlin's room while Gaius was gone for his rounds. They snuck furtively in, not wanting him to find them there together. They knew what it must look like.

Yet it was innocent, mostly, the two of them curled on the bed with Arthur's arm around Gwen and his face buried in her hair, her hand gently stroking the hair on his wrist. They kissed sometimes, brushes of lips and tongues, but it felt soft. Gentle. She set his hand on her breast one day, and he squeezed it, kissing her deeply and stroking his thumb over her nipple until it swelled into a hard nub beneath her chemise. He caught her eye, seeking permission, and she nodded, allowing him to unlace her bodice with clumsy fingers and untie the knot in her drawstring neckline, pulling the chemise down around her waist. He buried his face in her breasts, breathing in her sweet scent, and licking and suckling as though he draw some measure of peace from her body.

Yet when Gwen opened her legs, silently offering, Arthur pulled away, muttering something about a meeting with Uther, though his father wasn't expecting him until dinner. Gwen tucked herself back into her bodice with flaming cheeks, and Arthur glared down at the dusty floor. They couldn't meet each other's eyes afterward, and she hurried from the room before he could excuse himself for his fictitious meeting. After that, she didn't offer again, and he didn't ask.

Still, they met each other in Merlin's room, drawing what comfort they could from each other. And if occasionally Gwen glanced down at Arthur's head bowed over her breasts and imagined that his hair was dark instead of golden, his fingers roughened by labour as well as by sword pommel . . . if Arthur, stretched out with his head in her lap, ever thought back to that day in the battlefield, pretending it was Merlin's lips that brushed so gently over his temple and Merlin's fingers that curled around his arm . . . well, if either of those things were true, they didn't mention it to each other, or even let themselves dwell on it. Often.

Summer came, and the forest smelled of lemon balm and honeysuckle, of ripened blackberries, moss, of warm rains and rich, dark earth. Merlin spent his days walking, and indeed, though he scarcely knew it, walked one day out of the little forest near Mercia entirely. Every forest has a heart, a little patch of trees – sometimes as small as a tender seedling, sometimes miles wide – in which the wild magic of the woods gathers before surging back out. This forest's heart was an apple grove, where fruit ripened golden amidst the crooked branches. From here, though he didn't properly appreciate it, Merlin could step into any forest in Albion, and here he settled.

His hair grew longer, tangling at the nape of his neck. A beard darkened his cheeks. His sunburned skin grew gradually darker, and freckles blossomed across his nose. Honeybees flitted in the undergrowth, and sometimes, he followed them back to their hive, thrusting his fingers in amidst their buzzing bodies and breaking off a piece of comb. They protested with a whining buzz, but didn't dare to sting him, and he soothed them in their own language, promising long, warm days filled with opening buds and pollen enough to make up for his small thievery.

Summer was as sweet as the raw honey he dripped into his mouth and sucked from his fingers, as sweet as the apples, still tart on the branch, but always content to speed their ripening, just a little, for Merlin. The days grew longer, sunlight dappling through the leaves far into the evening, and Merlin's mouth was constantly stained with berries, which he ate in companionable kinship with the mother brown bear, as the two cubs tumbled over each other in their playfulness. The entire forest feasted and grew fat in the sunlight. Merlin sunned himself with the lizards on the rock, and hunted with a wolf pack that drew him into its fold with befuddled, but genuine, acceptance.

Merlin couldn't remember the last time he'd been so genuinely happy.

For so long, he'd tried to find a purpose for his magic. He'd left Ealdor for the promise of Gaius' knowledge, and once in Camelot, Kilgarrah's words had given meaning to his life. He'd devoted himself and his magic to protecting Arthur, and by the time it occurred to him to wonder whether the destiny Kilgarrah promised was real, Arthur's friendship had become so important to Merlin that he'd have fought off any competing fate to ensure his future at Arthur's side.

And for the first time, he started wondering if his magic needed to serve a purpose. Perhaps it simply _was_, like the sunset streaking the western sky with crimson and gold, like the craggy-branched apple trees that dropped their fruit into his waiting hands. His blood flowed with the stream, his breath with the wind. His heartbeat echoed the pulse of the earth. His magic rooted him to the soil beneath his feet, and spread overhead in an ever-widening net that reverberated with the pulsing wings of hawks and sparrows, and mingled with tree limbs. He was the forest. The forest was he. And if in those first few months he sometimes woke, spent and gasping, with Arthur's name on his lips . . . well, when midsummer came and the wild magic spilled through him as though Merlin were a cup, overflowing, by then, Arthur's face was merely a fond but distant memory.

While Arthur pined in Camelot and Merlin slowly wound himself into the forest of Calidon, Morgana wrestled with the dreams that had plagued her all her life. She and Morgause had retreated to Cornwall, and taken residence in a crumbling castle by the sea. The crash of waves against the cliffs soothed her as she walked with Morgause at night, the crumbling lower wall of the castle filled now with candles. The water gathered in the sunken floor on the lower level reflected their dancing light. Morgause and Morgana slept in the day, curled in the same bed, the heavy curtains drawn tight around them, closing out the sunlight, their limbs heavy with the potion they'd taken to tie their minds together, and Morgause slipping through the dreams behind her like a silent, invisible guard.

"Don't be afraid."

And she wasn't anymore. Until she saw him, his eyes wild and gold beneath his shaggy fringe, a rough beard darkening his cheekbones. Her heart beat a frantic tempo in her chest, and she choked, remembering the horrifying feel of her throat locking around her, poisoned water leaking from the leather skin, his eyes guilty when he finally turned to look at her.

"Breathe, Morgana," Morgause said. "He can't hurt you now. Move closer to him."

Gathering her courage, Morgana stepped closer. He crouched beside a swift-moving stream, his face lowered to the water, and it should look ridiculous, Merlin lapping at the stream like a dog, but his movements held a feral grace. The bushes behind him rustled, and an immense bear lumbered out, two cubs rolling along behind her. Morgana gasped, but Merlin only turned, giving them that wide, dimpled smile she'd once held so dear. The mother bear allowed him to scratch behind her ear before wading right into the water, scooping out a trout with a quick swipe of her paws.

"Closer," Morgause urged, and Morgana took a stumbling step closer to the stream, where Merlin sat with the two bears. But her slippered foot stepped on a twig, cracking loudly, and he glanced up, startled. Something was wrong -- he shouldn't have heard that. It should have made no noise. Merlin turned, looking right at her, and his eyes were golden, wide with surprise. They stared at each other, both shocked into silence, and then he lifted his hand and breathed a string of syllables, eyes glowing.

Morgana stumbled backwards, landing backwards amongst the candles. Morgause extinguished them with a glare, and sat behind her, wrapping her sister in her arms.

"He saw me," Morgana gasped. "I don't know how, but he saw me."

"Where was he?" Morgause pressed.

"In . . . in a forest. I don't know where."

"No," Morgause said, a small smile curving her lips. "He's hidden himself. But that's okay." She stroked Morgana's hair, quiet for a moment, considering. "It's okay," she repeated. "Arthur will lead us to him."


	3. Chapter 3

"They say he speaks to beasts, your majesty," the woman said, twisting her hands nervously in her skirt. "They say he lives as one of them. I've heard that he can kill a crop with a single glance, and still a pregnant woman's babe with the wave of his fingers. Some people think he looks after us, but I know he's a monster."

Arthur tried to keep still as she spoke.

"You did right to come here," Uther said. "Such sorcery cannot be tolerated. We must send the knights after this wild man of the forest."

Unwittingly, Arthur's eyes sought Gaius'. The court physician held his gaze for a moment, then stepped forward, drawing the king's attention.

"The Calidon forest lies within the kingdom of Dyved, Sire" Gaius said. "King Rordach will surely see the presence of an army there as an act of war."

"A small group of soldiers, then," Uther said.

"Father," Arthur spoke up, "surely you realize that this wild man might be Merlin?"

"The thought has crossed my mind," Uther said, his eyes narrowing.

Arthur straightened his back, calling on every bluff he'd ever made "The sorcerer, Merlin, lied to me for two years. He insinuated himself into my household, and from that position, nearly killed me."

"Yet you failed to suspect him until it was too late."

"A mistake that I won't make again, Father." Arthur held the king's gaze, silently praying that he'd give in to reason. "My trust was broken by his treachery. My honour was damaged in not recognizing him sooner. Now it's my responsibility to rid Camelot of him. Please, Father, let me pursue him with a small group of my best men. Geraint and Breunor have both proved themselves in fights against sorcerers in the past. "

Uther studied him a long moment. "You recognize the boy's duplicity now," he said coldly. "Yet when you first returned from the battlefield, you defended his actions to me. And in the past, you've shown almost foolish loyalty to your manservant. Those actions make me hesitate to trust you with the task of retrieving him."

"I was wrong," Arthur said. "Now that Merlin is gone, I can see how neatly he manipulated me with his magic. For that alone, I want him dead."

Arthur forced his face to remain impassive while Uther stroked his chin, obviously indecisive. At last, Uther gave a short nod. "Very well," he said. "But I charge Sir Ector with the task of monitoring you on this mission. You have shown that you can easily succumb to this sorcerer's enchantments -- Sir Ector will remain by your side to ensure that your mind remains unclouded by magic."

It took all of Arthur's diplomatic training not to betray his dismay. Only five years Uther's junior, Ector had been hoping to lead the knights once their previous leader, Sir Lionel, died. He'd been politely sceptical of Arthur's ability to manage men so many years his senior. Though Arthur's prowess on the battlefield had earned Ector's grudging respect, the older knight remained Uther's man through and through. Besides that, Ector shared Uther's grudge against magic.

Many years ago, Ector's niece, Rowena, had purchased a love potion from the village hedgewitch, not realizing that the witch shared her affections for the boy she meant to ensnare with it. The hedgewitch had slipped hemlock into the potion, and Rowena had died in great pain. Since then, Ector had hated magic with a passion that almost mirrored Uther's.

Now, Sir Ector stepped forward, his greying curls obscuring his face as he bowed. "I swear to protect Prince Arthur from enchantment, your majesty," Ector intoned solemnly.

Uther nodded. "I know that you will, my old friend. Arthur, you may begin preparations immediately. Geraint, Breunor, and Ector will accompany you. See that you don't disappoint me again."

Arthur dipped his head in a sharp nod. "I will make you proud, Father."

Once safely back in his chambers, Arthur let his shoulders slump. Stepping to the window, he looked out over the rolling hills beyond the castle. The Calidon forest lay on the other side of those hills, at the kingdom's far western border. And maybe Merlin was inside it.

Arthur had almost given up looking for Merlin. He'd spent his recovery clenching his teeth whenever the knights went out in pursuit of Merlin (rumours of him abounded those first few months). Every time, he'd almost wept in relief when they failed to find them. Unconsciously, Arthur's fingers slipped beneath the hem of his red shirt to touch the smooth scar over his abdomen. Gaius had told him that without Merlin's magic, he'd be dead. Looking back, Arthur supposed that without Merlin's magic, he'd probably be dead a dozen times over without even counting his miraculous healing on the battlefield.

Crossing the room, Arthur opened the small wooden chest where he kept his prized possessions. A suede pouch made from the first deer he'd ever slain -- too stained now to wear, but too precious to discard. A gold locket with a tiny portrait of his mother. A dagger Uther gave him for his sixth birthday. And a worn linen cloth, patches of the original blue standing out in stark contrast to the dark brown bloodstains spread over most of the surface.

Gwen had laundered the neckerchief before giving it to Arthur, but considering that Merlin had held this cloth to Arthur's stomach while he chanted the words that healed Arthur's wound . . . well, by the time Gwen got the neckerchief, it was already beyond repair. Any other servant would have relegated it to the scrap bin. Gwen had washed it, folded it, and handed it to Arthur with tears in her eyes as he lay recovering in chambers that were suddenly too big and quiet without Merlin's clumsy tidying and endless prattle. If Arthur hadn't loved Gwen for her goodness and honest courage, the choked smile she'd given him as she'd pressed the square of fabric into his hand would have won him over. "I miss him, too," her smile had said. "You're not alone in this."

Now, Arthur unfolded the square of stained linen and pressed his face into it. The fabric smelled of the cedar chest and of lavender-scented soap. But beyond that, Arthur imagined he could still catch a whiff of Merlin's scent -- moss, and wood smoke, and a musky scent all Merlin's own. Arthur had done this too many times to pretend that he still didn't remember exactly what Merlin smelled like.

Merlin was alive. Arthur was going to find him.

Already, his heart was starting to race as it did before battle. Without letting himself think of what he was doing, Arthur folded the neckerchief into a long, thin rectangle. Pushing up his sleeve, he awkwardly tied it to his bare arm, like a favour. It looked ridiculous there, of course -- though not, Arthur thought, as ridiculous as it had looked around Merlin's neck -- but the touch of the soft fabric against his skin felt right, somehow, as though Merlin himself were squeezing Arthur's arm as he sometimes did before Arthur went into battle.

Someone knocked on his door, and he pulled his sleeve down hurriedly, checking to make sure the blue fabric was entirely hidden beneath it. "Come in," he said roughly.

The door pushed open, and Gwen slipped inside, closing it behind her.

"Arthur!" she cried. "I heard what happened."

"I'm not going to," Arthur started to reassure, and then he looked at her, really looked, and realized that she was wearing breeches instead of her usual skirt, although her bodice was the same, laced up over a man's shirt. A travelling pack hung over one shoulder.

"I know," she said, giving him a nervous smile. "Of course you wouldn't. But I'm coming with you."

"It's too dangerous," Arthur protested.

"Like Ealdor was?" she snapped, crossing her arms. "He's my friend, too. I can't just sit here and hope that he . . . that you . . . " She shook herself, forcing a smile. "Besides," she said. "I can mend armour. I can cook. I can fight, if it comes down to that. I can help you."

Arthur took her by the shoulders. "Guinevere," he said. "If it is him, then we . . . I might not be able to return."

He hadn't let himself think this far . . . what would happen when he found Merlin? Killing him was out of the question, and bringing him back for Uther to burn at the stake even more so. Yet leaving him there, in the woods . . . the thought made Arthur's gut clench. Not because the thought of another year without Merlin was unbearable, he told himself firmly, but because he owed Merlin his life.

But Gwen only nodded. "I know."

"Then you know you should stay."

"For what?" she asked, her voice breaking. "My father's dead. Morgana's gone. You and Merlin are my only other friends. I won't let you go off after him and leave me here by myself."

"I could order you to stay," he said gently, wiping at her eyes.

She lifted her chin a fraction of an inch. "Arthur," she said gently, "I'm not asking your permission to go. I'm telling you that I'm coming."

He met her eyes for a long moment, and felt himself softening. "Well, if you're that determined to come, I might as well make things easy on myself," he said with forced nonchalance. "The four of us are leaving in an hour. I guess this makes the five of us, now."

Leaning forward, she brushed a kiss across his cheek. "We're going to find him, Arthur," she promised.

Years would pass until another group as rag-tag as this one set off from the castle gates, and then, as now, it would be Merlin's fault. Even Uther sensed the importance this mission would have on the kingdom's future, and he followed the group into the courtyard, instead of making his goodbyes to Arthur in private, as he generally preferred to do. Arthur, for his part, squared his shoulders under his father's watchful gaze, and tried to school his expression into the same determined look he always wore when heading out to rid Camelot of a magical danger. Only Gwen caught the faint wrinkle in Arthur's forehead that betrayed his nervousness, and only she noticed the way his gloved hand lingered guiltily over his saddlebag, as though he were a naughty boy sneaking sweets past his nursemaid's nose.

Gaius had drawn Arthur aside before he'd left the castle, and pressed several bottles into his hands.

"The forests of Calidon hold many dangers, sire -- these remedies may become necessary should any of your men get injured." His voice was calm, matter-of-fact, but his eyes darted nervously around the room, as though he expected Ector to jump out from Arthur's cloak and surprise them.

Arthur took the bottles and sighed, knowing that there was more from the expression on the old man's face. "Out with it, Gaius," he said.

Gaius wrung his hands, steeling himself for a conversation that he'd never in his lifetime imagined having with the crown prince. "Sire," he said, voice dropping to a whisper. "Merlin left a book in his room."

"A book," Arthur said flatly.

Again, Gaius glanced suspiciously around the room. Rising onto tiptoes, he breathed into Arthur's ear, "It was a book of spells, sire."

Arthur's hand formed a fist at his side, and he exhaled deeply, counting to ten so he wouldn't shout. "Of course it was," he muttered darkly. "He probably managed to slip it past me, and the Witch Finder, and God only knows who else. I suppose you haven't turned it in."

Gaius only lifted an eyebrow, and Arthur sighed.

"What about the book?' Arthur asked.

"Sire," Gaius said. "If Merlin had this book in his possession, it would be a tremendous asset to him. With his innate gifts and the knowledge in that book, he would be a far more dangerous opponent."

"But you said he left the book in his room," Arthur said.

Gaius nodded politely, and only then did Arthur realize what he was getting at.

"Good God!" he hissed, glancing around the corridor himself. "Gaius, are you seriously suggesting I carry an illegal magical book with me on my quest because it might help the fugitive sorcerer I'm trying to find?"

"Of course not, sire," Gaius said, patting Arthur's arm. "I merely wanted you to know that the book is on Merlin's bed. I've, er, taken the liberty of wrapping it."

The book, wrapped in leather as Gaius had promised and further concealed in a roll of spare clothes, now rested at the bottom of Arthur's saddlebag, safely hidden beneath his travelling provisions. Logically, Arthur knew that Uther couldn't possibly catch a glimpse of it, not unless his father wanted to lower his dignity enough to search through Arthur's things. Nonetheless, he couldn't quite keep his hand from lingering protectively over the saddlebag whenever Uther's gaze passed in his direction.

Safely beneath the king's notice, Gwen busied herself loading provisions onto her own horse, and double-checking Geraint and Breunor's armour. Given the furtive nature of their quest, Arthur had refused to allow the knights' squires to come along, especially, he'd said, since Gwen knew as much about armour as any man among them. She'd blushed to hear it, and Ector (who'd known her as Gwen, the blacksmith's daughter, long before she was Gwen, Lady Morgana's maid) had chuckled and patted her shoulder.

"That she does," he'd agreed, his voice so friendly that Gwen almost forgot that Ector would be Uther's eyes and ears on this mission. It seemed a pity that a knight so jovial should share Uther's hatred for all things magical -- especially since Geraint and Breunor didn't share Ector's easy acceptance of her.

Oh, they were friendly enough, at least while Arthur was around. But Gwen didn't miss the speculative way their eyes flickered back and forth from her to Arthur. When she'd risen on tiptoes to set Breunor's helmet on his head, he'd leered down at her cleavage.

And as she'd slipped past them, Geraint had said to his companion, loud enough for Gwen to hear, "I hope his highness doesn't plan on keeping her all to himself."

Gwen's ears had flamed, and she'd glanced helplessly at Arthur, but he was nodding politely as Uther spoke to him, and hadn't heard Geraint's comment. At that moment, she'd have been glad of Ector's presence, but he was nowhere to be seen. In the end, she'd just walked stiffly past the two knights, trying to pretend she hadn't heard. She knew what it looked like -- a single woman accompanying a group of men into the woods. Things would have been different if she were a lady like Morgana. Then they'd be charged with protecting her. Though Gwen wasn't naive enough to assume their comments would stop, at least they'd refrain from insulting her in her presence. But no code of chivalry protected a servant, and Gwen knew that they'd assumed she'd come as Arthur's bed-warmer. Even more humiliating, Gwen thought, was that she'd be perfectly happy to warm Arthur's bed -- if only he weren't so bloody honourable.

For their parts, Geraint and Breunor were equally subdued. Geraint remembered Merlin as the impudent peasant boy who'd challenged Arthur in the square without having a bloody clue whom he was addressing. Although he'd sneered at Merlin with the rest of Arthur's men, Geraint had to admit that the boy's pig-headed bravery had earned his grudging respect. Since that day, Merlin had only grown in Geraint's estimation. Though Merlin wore no armour and could only fumblingly handle a sword, his loyalty to Arthur was plain to see. Treacherous though it was, Geraint knew that if he'd been born with magic, no king on earth could have prevented him from using it to save Arthur's life on the battlefield, as Merlin had.

Breunor, for his part, had never met Merlin. He'd only arrived in Camelot six months ago, wearing his dead father's armour (three sizes too large for him) and itching to prove himself. The youngest of three sons, Breunor had inherited the armour, and precious little besides. He'd scoffed when he learned the crown prince led the knights of Camelot, figuring Arthur was like his eldest brother, spoiled and soft. Whoever heard of the heir to the throne risking his life on the battlefield? Yet Arthur was as skilled a knight as Breunor could ever dream of becoming. He'd earned Breunor's loyalty at a point when Breunor thought he'd never look up to another man again. For that alone, Breunor would follow Arthur to the end of the earth, and face a million sorcerers with him.

Geraint, Breunor, Arthur and Gwen all sat astride their horses, eager and impatient, by the time Sir Ector bounded into the courtyard with the energy of a man half his age. A flurry of hounds accompanied him, yipping excitedly and following close at his heels.

"Excellent, Sir Ector," Uther said with a smile.

"We're not hunting a fox," Arthur sneered, and his father glared at him.

"No. You're hunting a sorcerer, and you will use every method at your disposal to find him."

Arthur's stomach churned, and he sought for a way to avoid the hounds. "But . . . we'd need something with his scent on it."

Sir Ector smiled, and pulled a square of grey wool from his pack. Arthur recognized it at once as a scrap of the blanket from Merlin's bed. He opened his mouth to protest, but Uther stepped forward, clapping Ector on the shoulder with a smile.

"Well done, Sir Ector." His eyes were steel as he looked at Arthur. "I pray that you won't let me down."

"I know my duty, Father," Arthur said, and set off.

Arthur wanted to push them fast and far. Although he wouldn't admit it, even to himself, he was eager to gain distance from Camelot and the expression on his father's face. Arthur had seen that expression often as a boy, though it had become more infrequent since he'd come of age. When Uther looked at him like that, brows drawn and lips set in a small frown, it meant he was disappointed, that Arthur had failed to live up to his father's expectations yet again. That look had followed him through his first tournament, when, at fourteen, he'd been solidly trounced by Sir Cadagon. It had haunted him through the long hours on the practice field afterwards, swinging his sword again and again until his muscles memorized the movement, until he could do it in his sleep. Now, the memory of that look as Uther bid them farewell wore on Arthur, heavier on his shoulders than his gorget and pauldron. It had been years since Arthur had last earned that look from his father. Now, he was about to disappoint Uther more than all of those childhood missteps combined. He rode grimly at the front of the party, wishing again that his father hadn't encouraged Sir Ector to bring the hounds. They streamed ahead of Ector, all whip-like bodies and strong, lean legs, but they couldn't run as fast and far as the horses.

Ector, Breunor, and Geraint rode together, with Arthur far ahead, dropping out of sight as he crested a hill and then, as they reached the top, waiting impatiently at its base. The knights kept pace with the hounds, who curved around them in swooping lines, darting from the road to piss against a tree or sniff the base of a rock. In the rear, Gwen laboured more slowly. She was used to riding, but she'd known, before Arthur said so, that the two of them might not be able to return to Camelot. For all that Arthur denied it, she knew he cared for Merlin deeply. He wouldn't leave him in the woods. At the very least, Arthur would want to take Merlin to a safe village outside the borders of Camelot. He'd want to see Merlin safe and happy. She and Arthur both knew that this trip wasn't the quick expedition that Uther thought it was, but she, of the two of them, had the common sense enough to plan for it. She'd raided the castle's stores and packed for a much longer expedition, and her horse laboured under a heavier load than the knights in their armour.

As he paused to wait for the knights to catch up with him, Arthur thought of princes and servants. He'd envied Merlin almost desperately in their first year of knowing each other. Merlin, with his high ideals and easy gait, who'd greeted everyone, prince and commoners, as though they were equals. Merlin acted as though doing the right thing were easy. He didn't know what it felt like to carry the weight of the kingdom on his shoulders. Merlin didn't even know how to call him by his proper title when they talked.

At first, Arthur thought Merlin's openness came from growing up in Ealdor. In a village where wealth was measured by chickens and sheep, Arthur supposed Merlin couldn't have learned how to address his betters. That notion had lasted until Arthur visited Ealdor. Hunith had treated Arthur with the same uneasy deference that commoners in Camelot did, although her smiles were more genuine. So had the other villagers, for that matter. Only now did Arthur realize that Merlin's cockiness probably sprang from his magic. It must be easy to buck convention when you could destroy the prince you were sassing with a ball of energy. In the past, Arthur had occasionally disobeyed Uther, when the results of flaunting his father's orders meant more than the pang of disappointing the man he'd spent a lifetime trying to please.

But now Arthur didn't ride to save the kingdom from a dragon. He didn't ride to save an innocent boy from an execution. He didn't ride to lift a curse. He rode for Merlin, and Merlin alone, and though there was honour in it -- Merlin had done nothing, _nothing_ to warrant an execution but use his magic to save Arthur's life -- honour didn't set his heart to racing at the thought of seeing Merlin again. Honour couldn't speak to the lost, hollow feeling in his gut, beneath the glistening scar. Merlin was a servant and Arthur was a prince. They couldn't be friends. But they got on, somehow, despite Merlin's morose fits and his inane chatter and his patently untrue insults. Arthur was going to find him, despite his father's orders, despite Ector's watchful eye. He rode forward, watching the horizon.

The sun was only a faint red glimmer in the western sky when Arthur finally allowed them to camp for the night. Tumbling off their horses with relieved sighs, the knights bent to stretch their aching thighs and rub their shoulders, sore from the press of mail. They were all tired and sore, sweaty from the heat and their chafing armour. Arthur dismounted with much less fuss, and discreetly stretched his shoulders, too well-trained to show his discomfort. Belatedly, he realized that he should help Gwen off her horse, and turned to do so, but she'd already scrambled off. Her dark head was bowed over her saddle as her nimble fingers unbuckled the straps. Sensing Arthur watching her, she looked up and gave him a shy smile before slipping the saddle from the horse's back. Returning the smile, he turned his attention back to his own mount

Soon, the five horses ate grain from their feedbags, tethered close enough to the stream that they could drink from it. The three hounds had bounded right in the moment they stopped, and now they splashed out, shaking water everywhere. Gwen shrieked with mirth as the dirty water sprayed her breeches Breunor and Geraint laughed, raising their arms in front of their faces in a half-hearted effort to keep dry.

"Your mail will rust if you're not careful," Arthur said, but the words came out sharper than he'd intended, more reprimand than jest.

Schooling their expressions back to seriousness, the two knights nodded contritely and escaped into the woods with the promise of finding firewood. Arthur felt Sir Ector's gaze on him, from where the older man knelt, sorting through his saddlebags, but when he turned to meet his gaze defensively, Ector's expression gave nothing away.

A river marked the boundary between Camelot and Rordach's kingdom. There'd been a bridge here once -- Arthur remembered glimpsing it as he patrolled the outer edges of the kingdom with his men last summer. It had burned since -- only the charred tops of two wooden poles remained, still buried deep within the earth.

"This happened recently," Ector said, stripping away his glove to touch the burnt wood with his bare hand. His fingers came away black, and he brushed them clean on his cloak.

"How long?" Arthur asked.

"A day. Maybe two."

"Is someone trying to keep us out?" Gwen asked, her voice steady, though her eyes betrayed a faint glimmer of fear.

"Rordach has spies, just like King Uther does," Geraint said. "Perhaps he learned of our mission."

"But that makes no sense!" Arthur protested. "Why would Rordach burn the bridge? His people use it just as often as ours."

"The prince is right," Ector agreed. "Any spies would have informed King Rordach that there are only four of us." Gwen bristled at being left out of the count, but Ector didn't notice her. "If Rordach wanted to stop us, he'd have been better off sending a troop of armed men to patrol the border."

"Could the sorcerer have done it?" Breunor asked nervously.

Arthur snorted. "The last time Merlin wanted to keep people away, he erected a wall of flames ten feet high. He's not trying to hide his magic anymore. If he wanted us to turn back, believe me, we'd know."

"Still, it's mighty suspicious," said Geraint, and Ector nodded his agreement.

"Do you think we could ford it?" Breunor asked.

Arthur paced up and down the shoreline, studying the river. Although not too wide -- nine, maybe ten feet at the most -- its current was quick, the water high from autumn floods. Breaking a branch from a small alder, he leaned far out over the water, careful not to lose his footing. He plunged the branch into the river, and gasped as the current seized it. Planting his feet, he wrestled it back, and lifted it, dripping, back to land. When he stood the branch on the ground beside him, the dark, wet portion reached his chest.

"We could ford it," he said at last. "But it will be dangerous."

"Isn't there another bridge somewhere?" Gwen asked, swallowing.

"Three days ride to the east," Sir Ector answered. "Or there's a ford two days to the west. By then, the sorcerer may well have learned of our presence."

"Still, it might be safer," Breunor said. "I'm not keen on fording that."

"I can't swim," Geraint said, a faint edge of panic in his voice. He leaned back against his horse, studying the trees lining the stream. He thought maybe to fell one of them, use it to make a rudimentary bridge. But none of them were tall enough, and most were far too spindly to bear a grown man's weight. "I think we should head to the bridge."

"I'm crossing here," Arthur said firmly. "The rest of you can journey to the bridge, if you'd like. We can meet up in the woods."

"I've sworn to protect you from sorcery," Ector said immediately. "If you cross here, I will follow you."

"And I," said Breunor, puffing out his chest.

"Fine, me, too," Geraint muttered, hating the thought of looking a coward.

Arthur's gaze fell on Gwen, but she didn't answer. She was busy unfastening her saddle bags. Finally, she undid them, staggering a little under the weight, and, glancing up, blushed to see that all of the men were watching her. "We'll have to swim the horses," she explained. "I don't want our food to get wet."

Arthur thought of the book hidden in his own bag, and understood. "We'll have to carry them on our shoulders," he agreed.

"But what of our weapons? Our armour?" Geraint asked. The rest immediately caught his meaning -- if they lost their footing, their heavy armour would drag them to the bottom. Swimming in full mail was out of the question.

"We can carry the weapons on our shoulders," Arthur said at last. "We can either try our chances with the mail, or leave it here."

Breunor was studying the rapid current. "You know," he said, to no one in particular, "if one of us crosses first, he can toss a rope across for the others to use as a guide."

"That might work," Ector agreed. "But who would go first?"

"I will," Arthur answered at once.

"Sire, no!" Breunor cried.

At the same time, Ector said, "I'm not sure that's wise, sire," and Geraint vehemently shook his head. Only Gwen did not protest. She glanced from Arthur to the water thoughtfully, as though calculating his ability to cross it.

"You are the strongest," she said, ignoring the sputtering of the other knights. "But you'll have to let us carry your things."

"Fair enough," Arthur said, dumping his saddlebag and sword in Geraint's arms. With Gwen's help, he struggled out of his armour. He folded the mail, watching the sunlight glitter on the links. He'd never been able to shine them as brightly as Merlin had. Wrapping the armour in his surcoat, Arthur placed it carefully into the hole Gwen dug with the small camp shovel she'd packed. Geraint and Breunor added their own bundles of armour into the hole, Breunor's face looked haunted as he took the shovel from Gwen to scoop dirt back over it. It was ridiculous, Breunor knew, to worry so much about a suit of armour that didn't even fit him. Some might say that losing it would be a blessing – he could commission new armour in Camelot, something his size. Yet the armour, ill-fitting as it was, remained Breunor's only link to his father's estate. He felt strangely naked without it.

Arthur clapped him on the shoulder, his face kind. "With luck, it will still be here when we come back," he said. Carefully, he stacked three stones atop the buried armour, to remind them where to find it on their journey back.

Catching hold of his horse's bridle, Arthur stepped into the stream. It was deeper than he'd judged from the bank, and he plunged in up to his hips. The sudden shock of cold water disoriented him, and he staggered, nearly losing his footing in the quick current. Gripping the reins to steady himself, Arthur planted his feet in the riverbed, imagining them strong and rooted. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in and out. When he opened them, the knights and Gwen were watching him with worried eyes.

Firming his jaw into the same expression he always wore in battle, Arthur took a careful step away from the bank. He managed it without losing his footing, but the reins were growing taut now -- Arthur's stallion stood at the edge of the river bank, hooves resolutely planted in the grass.

Sighing, Arthur retraced his steps carefully, until he was close enough to stroke the horse's head.

"Come on, boy," he said.

The stallion whinnied, nostrils flaring.

"I know," Arthur whispered to him. "You don't want to do this. But you're a brave, beautiful horse. You can make it across. Follow me." He stepped back, and the horse reluctantly followed him.

"Good boy," Arthur breathed, guiding him forward. "Come on."

The horse followed him into the river, until the cold water lapped at Arthur's waist, and then at his chest. He felt the moment when the stallion began to swim instead of walk, and looped an arm around the horse's neck, whispering reassurances all the while.

Finally, they made it to the opposite shore, a good ten yards west from where they'd started. Arthur helped his horse onto the bank, and grinned back across the river. Uncoiling the rope from around his neck, he tied one end of it onto a thick branch, and tried throwing it across. The first throw landed in the water, a good foot away from the shore.

"We'll have to work on your throwing arm, sire!" Geraint teased good-naturedly. Arthur scowled, but didn't chide him. He knew the knight was trying to work himself up for the crossing. Drawing the rope back, he tried again.

His second throw hit a rock near the bank and bounced back into the river. His third reached the opposite shore, and Ector snatched it up, looping it twice around an oak before catching hold of the end with both hands.

"All right," Arthur called. "Who's next?"

After a quick conversation, Breunor and Geraint chose to cross together. Geraint caught hold of the rope before even stepping foot into the river, and gripped it as he coaxed his gelding in after him. Breunor's mare, a spirited bay with a death wish almost as big as her rider's, Arthur privately thought, came right in with a minimum of fuss, as though they were out for a pleasant ride through the countryside. Their progress was quicker than Arthur's, helped by the rope. At one point, Breunor lost his footing and went under. They all gasped, but he surfaced, gasping, a moment later, pushing his wiry curls out of his face. After that, he chose to swim beside his horse instead of wade. They made it across with no other problems, and Arthur helped them onto the bank, clapping them both on the arm.

Gwen crossed next, alone because Ector decided to go last. Gwen rode a small grey mare that Morgana had given to her months before her disappearance. Arthur bit his lip as he watched her faltering progress. She was smaller than the rest of them, and the current buffeted her more strongly. Finally, she kicked her feet out behind her and half floated, half pulled herself across, one hand gripping the rope, the other splashing in the water.

Arthur lifted her out with tangible relief, his fingers lingering at her waist. Geraint and Breunor elbowed each other, waggling their eyebrows suggestively. Gwen blushed, catching sight of them over Arthur's shoulder. Not noticing, he waved Ector to start. The older knight was already tossing the hounds in one by one – they yelped as their bodies hit the frigid water, but recovered quickly. With Geraint and Breunor's enthusiastic clapping and whistling for encouragement, they paddled across the quick river and onto the opposite bank.

Finally, Ector stepped in. Of all the knights, he alone had elected to wear his armour. The thought of facing a sorcerer without it chilled him to his bones. His progress was slower than the others. He took each step carefully, mindful that he couldn't swim if he lost his footing, as the others had. He'd nearly made it to the opposite shore when he caught his foot in a rock, and fell face-forward into the stream with a mighty splash.

They all froze. For a horrible instant, Arthur thought that it would be so much easier if he drowned. Shocked at his own callousness, he shook his head, and dived into the river after Ector.

The current caught him at once, and he struggled against it, his strong strokes carrying him to the point where Ector had gone down. He only hoped that Ector hadn't been dragged away by the current – with luck, his armour's weight would keep him in place. Taking a deep breath, Arthur ducked under. Everything was dark and murky under the water. To his left, Arthur caught a glint that might be light reflecting off steel plate, might be something else entirely. Taking another breath, he swam towards it.

His arm caught Ector's shoulder, and he helped the knight struggle upwards. Gasping for breath, Ector choked, "My foot! It's caught!"

Nodding grimly, Arthur ducked back under. He saw the rock and tugged, but it wouldn't budge. After a moment, he had to give up and resurface.

"Leave me, sire," Ector said, his grey curls streaming like water down his face.

"Shut up," Arthur told him, and ducked back under. Again he struggled with the rock, again unable to budge it. Then a splash sounded near him, and a dark, slim-fingered hand landed on the rock beside Arthur's. Together, he and Breunor freed Ector from the rock. Catching hold of Ector on either side, they escorted him to shore.

"I owe you both my life," Ector gasped, pulling off his helmet and watching the water spill from it.

Gritting his teeth, Arthur said nothing. He thought of that horrible moment when Ector first went under. For a moment, Arthur had seriously considered letting him drown.

They camped that night a few miles from the river. The next morning, they left the road to follow a gurgling stream which flowed to the dark patch of trees barely visible on the horizon. The grass, untrodden, rippled like water around their horse's legs. They spotted a few signs that others had travelled this way before -- a scrap of blue wool clinging to the thorns of a blackberry bush, a jagged piece of tin so rusty that even Gwen couldn't identify its prior purpose, and the charred remains of a cooking fire long grown cold. If not for these tiny mementos of human life, they might have felt like they'd stepped into the fairy realms of legend. The muffled crunch of the horses' hooves on grass sounded eerily loud. Overhead, the grey sky had taken on the faint glow of twilight, though their shadows had shrunk with noon only a few hours before.

As they drew closer to the forest, their feelings of unease grew. More than once, Arthur caught himself gripping the reins one-handed, his other hand instinctively curled around the pommel of his sword. The others felt it as well. Ector had ceased trying to hide his nervousness, and rode with his sword drawn blatantly. Breunor kept turning to survey the path behind them, as though the stream or the waving grass might hide an enemy in close pursuit. Geraint lifted his bow from where it swung on his saddle, and pulled an arrow from the quiver in his back. Even Gwen's slim fingers lingered over the sword hanging from her belt, although she hadn't lifted a blade since Ealdor. The hounds no longer loped away to chase rabbits or sniff at the bushes along the stream. Instead, they followed the horses, their ears flicked back and their necks bristling.

The forest grew nearer and nearer. When a horse stepped from the trees, a rider on its back, they all exhaled, relieved to be faced with a visible foe rather than the shadowy doubts that had been following them all afternoon.

Even from a distance, Arthur could tell the rider was a trained warrior. He held himself alertly on the saddle, his body poised for action. He rode a bay horse, and his clothes were worn, but he moved with the deadly grace of Arthur's own knights. The rider stepped out of the shadows, revealing his face. Gwen gasped, and Arthur's jaw dropped.

"Lancelot!" he cried, dismounting and stepping forward to meet him. Behind him, he could hear the knights' whispered conversations -- Ector and Geraint had been privy to the details surrounding Lancelot's brief career as a knight of Camelot, but Breunor had joined more recently.

Dismounting as well, Lancelot bowed deeply to Arthur. "Prince Arthur," he said, with the quiet formality Arthur remembered all too well. Then, with a look of sadness, he pulled the leather gauntlet from his hand and tossed it to Arthur's feet.

Snarling, Geraint started towards it, but Arthur held up a hand to halt him. Gwen was staring at Lancelot as though stricken. He spared her a sad glance, but quickly returned his attention to Arthur.

"Lancelot?" Arthur asked. "What do you mean by this?"

"Believe me, I've no wish to challenge you, sire," Lancelot said quietly, regret written on his face. "Had fate willed it, I would gladly have laid down my life for yours."

"I don't understand," Arthur said. "I know we didn't exactly part on the best of terms, but surely I've done you no harm since then."

"Rumour flies quickly, even this far from the court. I know you ride in search Merlin. I owe him my life. I can't allow you to harm him."

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose. "You don't understand," he said. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Ector watching him with narrowed eyes, and he knew he'd have to choose his next words with care. "Look," he said. "He saved my life, too, more times than I can count. But . . . he's not the man we thought we knew. From all accounts, he's gone insane."

"Forgive me, Arthur," Lancelot said. "But I can't help feeling that _you_ are not the man I thought I knew. Now, will you face me in honourable combat, or will you force me to take on all four of you at once?"

Still stalling, Arthur asked, "Were you the one who burned the bridge, then?"

"I was," Lancelot acknowledged. "And you haven't answered my question. Will you fight me honourably, Prince Arthur?"

"Lancelot, please," Arthur said. "You were one of the best fighters I ever admitted into the knighthood. I don't want to hurt you."

"Nor I you, sire," Lancelot said regretfully.

But before Arthurcould speak again, Gwen darted forward and seized the gauntlet.

"I accept your challenge," she said, drawing her sword and staring coolly down its length at Lancelot.

"Guinevere!" Arthur shouted.

At the same time, Lancelot stammered, "But . . . my lady . . . this challenge was never meant for you."

Gwen's lip trembled, but the sword in her grasp didn't waver. "You left me," she said. "Without even saying goodbye. You didn't even hint that you were going. I know that your challenge was meant for Prince Arthur, but _I'm_ the one who spent months wondering what I'd done to drive you off. I'm the one you hurt by your actions, and I demand the right to face you first. Arthur can have what's left of you when I've finished, if you want."

"But . . . " Lancelot started, but Gwen cut him off.

She took a step towards Lancelot, sword outstretched. He glanced from her to Arthur, to the knights who were shaking with repressed laughter behind him, and then made his decision. Dropping to one knee before Gwen, he bowed his head and offered his sword to her, hilt up.

"May Merlin forgive me," he said. "I can't bring myself to harm you any more than I already have. I yield, my Lady."

Gwen took the sword, then shocked them all by falling to her knees beside him and pulling him into a brief embrace. "You sodding idiot," she said, voice rough with emotion. "Merlin was my friend, too -- didn't you think about that? I've known him far longer than you have. Do you honestly think I'd be out here if things hadn't changed?"

"I don't understand," Lancelot said.

Grasping his shoulders, Gwen said, "Lancelot, you have to trust me. I don't want to hurt Merlin either, but it's for the best that we find him. It really is."


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur would have let Lancelot leave, but he insisted on joining them.

"I've yielded to Guinevere," he said, bowing his head. "I will follow her until she casts me aside."

Privately, Arthur was glad to have him there, although part of him bristled when he remembered the closeness Gwen and Lancelot once shared. Should Arthur need to challenge Ector and the other knights oppose him, Lancelot would be a welcome addition at his side.

They drew closer together as they entered the forest. Shadows fell from the tree limbs, darkening their path, and Gwen cast one regretful glance at the sunlight shining on the open grass behind them. Trees closed in around them, dark, mysterious, and alien. The path narrowed, forcing them to form a single-file line.

"It's hard to believe we're only a few miles from Camelot's border," Breunor muttered to Geraint.

"I know what you mean," Geraint agreed -- Camelot had its fill of forests, each more mysterious than the next, but the air here nearly shivered with magic. Ahead of them, Arthur rode as if unaware of it, red cloak streaming behind him. Lancelot held the rear of the line -- Ector and Breunor had bristled at the trust Arthur showed when giving him that position, but Gwen felt bolstered by his solid presence behind them, as did Geraint, who remembered how Lancelot had slain the griffon. Overhead, a whippoorwill called, voice shrill.

Ector remembered his grandmother's words about sorcerers: they live in the trees and draw their strength from the very earth itself. His jaw hardened as he watched Arthur riding ahead of them with single-minded focus. If the sorcerer put a spell on their prince, Ector wanted to be ready for it. He'd wondered at the prince's obvious affection for his manservant -- now that Ector knew of Merlin's sorcery, the past made so much more sense.

"Do you think he knows we're here?" Breunor asked, voice nervous. Riding into an enchanted forest was one thing, but if Merlin knew -- and if word had come to Lancelot, Merlin surely did know, though Geraint, at least, found it difficult to fear the friendly, dark-haired boy who'd trotted after Arthur on hunting trips and spent more afternoons in the stocks than the rest of Camelot's servants combined. He found it hard to believe that gangly Merlin in his threadbare trousers, worn jacket, and constant neckerchief, could be a sorcerer of any particular power. Geraint hadn't known Merlin well, but he'd seemed as threatening as an angry chipmunk.

"By all means," Arthur said drily from the front of the line, "do try to give away our position."

Breunor fell silent, gripping the reins tightly as he followed Arthur around an oddly-shaped boulder planted inexplicably in the forest path.

"_Is that?_" Geraint breathed, forgetting Arthur's orders to be quiet. The boulder looked uncomfortably like a giant boar, down to the narrow body and prominent tusks. It had been frozen mid-charge, a violent storm captured in stone. The hounds whimpered at the sight of it, backing away with their tails between their legs, and Ector made a brief x with his wrists, an old superstition said to ward off magic.

"Sorcery," he hissed, and even Arthur had to nod his agreement. No sculptor could have captured the coarse texture of the beast's fur or its wiry bristles. Did chisels that small even exist?

Dumbfounded, Arthur warily touched its stone flank, half expecting to feel its breath rise and fall beneath his hand. Poised mid-charge, two hooves already lifted from the forest floor, the boar looked like a half-completed thought, as though the enchantment upon it were only delaying the inevitable. It could have leapt forward at Arthur's touch, goring him with its vicious tusks, and none of them would have been surprised in the slightest. Yet the boar remained frozen solidly in place, a testament that Merlin was competent at something, at least. Arthur supposed that was comforting.

They left the boar feeling quiet and subdued; even Lancelot glanced back at it warily, and he'd known of Merlin's magic longer than any of them. Now that they knew what to look for, they recognized signs of sorcery around them - sorcery in the tree roots that lifted underfoot, nearly tripping the horses; sorcery in the crow that circled overhead; sorcery in the apple blossoms growing side-by-side with ripe fruit and yellow autumn leaves. After an hour, they found a more tangible sign of Merlin's presence -- a bare footprint outlined in the soft earth near the stream.

"It's time," Ector said, whistling for the hounds. They clustered around him as he opened his travelling pack and pulled out the wool rag.

"I don't think --" Arthur began, and Ector gave him a look.

"Surely you don't object to finding the sorcerer?"

"Of course not," Arthur said. "But we don't know what we're dealing with yet. You saw that boar. It's better to scout ahead -- the hounds will warn him of our presence."

"If he's as powerful as they say, no doubt he knows we're here already," Geraint said, glancing wide-eyed around them.

"Precisely," Ector said, kneeling to the hounds.

"Wait!" Arthur snapped -- but it was too late. The hounds were sniffing the wool blanket eagerly. Arthur touched a hand to a forehead, and wondered if, now that Lancelot was here, he'd be better off attacking the knights. They were good men and he'd hate to kill them, but if it came down to them or Merlin . . .

The hounds fanned out, snuffling at the forest floor. One circled Arthur and another Gwen. She looked up at him with panic in her eyes -- after all the hours they'd spent together in Merlin's old room, surely the scrap of blanket smelled as much of them as of Merlin -- but Arthur was glaring at Ector with his lips drawn in a straight line. The third hound picked up the scent near an elderberry bush and howled. The other two bounded after it, their attention removed from Arthur and Gwen, and the three hounds howled in unison behind the trees.

Finally breaking his glare at Ector, Arthur spurred his horse forward, and the others hastened to follow. The next few moments were exhilarating, crashing through the underbrush and ducking under branches. It felt almost like a hunt, save for the knowledge that Merlin was waiting for them, not a wild boar. The hounds were hot on the trail now, bounding through the forest faster than the humans on their horses. Gwen leaned forward over the neck of her mare, gripping the reins. Unlike the others, she'd never been on a hunt. She could see why Arthur loved it, the exhilaration of tracking prey. If there had been a stag or a wild boar at the end of this chase, she might also have enjoyed it. But Merlin was somewhere in the woods waiting for them, and the thought turned her stomach. When she glanced at Lancelot, he looked as disgusted as she felt.

The hounds led them through a rose thicket and under the imposing threshold of an oak, uprooted by the wind and leaning precariously against a quaking aspen. They lost Merlin's trail briefly at the banks of a small stream. The hounds wandered in circles, noses to the ground, splashing into the water and fanning up and down the stream bed on both sides. One of them finally located Merlin's scent in a bed of clover a few yards away from the opposite bank, and let out a howl, alerting her companions. Then the hunt was on again.

They thundered deeper, and deeper into the woods, through curtains of hanging moss and a clearing thick with fallen leaves. The trees blurred around them, brown branches punctuating a sunset of red, orange, and yellow leaves, and branches tore at their cloaks. They leaned over their horses' necks, straining to see the hounds bounding ahead through the trees ahead of them.

Then, all at once, the howling ceased. The riders trailed to a stop, breathless, their hands reaching for their weapons as their eyes strained to find the hounds. But the trees were thicker here. Even though they'd shed most of their leaves, the thick trunks and gnarled branches wove together like latticework. Not even a glimpse of fur was visible through them.

Arthur dismounted, sword drawn, his body tense as a drawn bowstring. He scanned the forest for movement. The others followed suit, the knights forming a half-circle behind him, Gwen and Lancelot trailing behind. The woods felt eerily silent after the din of the hounds. They could hear their own breath coming in sharp gasps. In the distance, a hawk gave a hunting cry. A branch cracked ahead.

They all froze at the sound, looking up. The trees were too thick to see clearly. They caught a glimpse of honey-coloured fur, the pale flash of skin through the trees. Then the trees parted, their gnarled branches giving way as easily as silk curtains. The remaining leaves twisted backwards as though eager to get a glimpse of the person behind them.

A man stepped out of the trees. He was tall and lanky, wearing only a piece of doe skin tied around his waist. The hounds followed eagerly behind him, fawning and licking at his bare feet, their tails wagging. Seedlings sprouted from the ground where he stepped, each footprint lush and green behind him. His skin was sunburned. Dark hair tangled nearly to his shoulders, and a rough beard covered his high cheekbones and sharp chin.

"Balinor!" Arthur whispered, his heart thumping painfully in his chest. Then the man looked up, and of course it wasn't Balinor, the dragonlord was dead, rotting in his grave, this was -- gods, this was --

"Merlin!" Gwen cried.

At the sound of her voice, Merlin turned towards her. His eyes glowed gold in the dim light. He glanced from Arthur to Gwen, and then back again, without recognition.

Then a crossbow cocked, and they all turned to see Ector steadying his bow against the ground, aiming it at Merlin.

"No!" Gwen screamed.

Arthur leaped forward, intent on pushing Merlin out of the way. Geraint and Breunor, sensing his plan, moved towards him, horrified that Arthur might take the shot intended for Merlin. Lancelot tackled Ector, but it was too late; he'd already released the bolt. It flew forward with deadly accuracy, not towards Merlin now, but Arthur, who'd leapt in front of him, shielding him with his body.

Merlin, during all of this, had stood still, his head cocked in confusion, his hands open at his side. But now he lifted a hand and, almost lazily, flicked it at the crossbow bolt an instant before it pierced Arthur's chest. The bolt disappeared in a flash of green sparks, and then Arthur was ploughing into Merlin from the side. His momentum tumbled them both to the ground.

"Merlin, you idiot!" Arthur was saying, furious.

Merlin looked back at him, wide-eyed and curious. There was no trace of recognition in his features. No sign at all that he knew Arthur.

"Merlin?" Arthur said. "Merlin, it's me."

Breunor's hands closed around his biceps, pulling him off Merlin. Arthur's shock was enough that he rose without a struggle, still staring desperately at his former servant. Geraint had Merlin captured, his arms twisted behind his back, but Merlin gave no sign of noticing. His gaze remained locked with Arthur's, quiet and unfathomable, as though Arthur were a stranger who'd barrelled into him.

"Merlin?" Arthur repeated, plaintively.

"You are under arrest for crimes committed in Camelot," Geraint was saying, twisting Merlin's hands behind his back. Breunor had released Arthur, and stepped forward, raising his sword to Merlin's throat.

Still, Merlin looked at Arthur, his brow drawn in clear confusion. Arthur stared back, his mouth gone dry.

"Do you hear me?" Geraint was saying, shaking Merlin. Finally, Merlin seemed to take notice of the knights surrounding them. He glanced from Geraint to Breunor, and his mouth twisted in a small, cruel smile.

"No!" Arthur cried, a chill forming at the base of his spine. He'd seen Merlin angry, seen him hurt, and upset, and all manners of indignant, but none of those expressions could have prepared him for this. Merlin looked like a cat playing with its food.

The sound of Arthur's voice startled Merlin. He glanced up sharply, the fey chillness in his expression softening. Again, he simply stared at Arthur, as though he recognized his face, but couldn't quite place it. Then Merlin shrugged and disappeared.

Geraint stumbled backwards, suddenly holding onto thin air. Breunor glanced around suspiciously, as though half expecting Merlin to attack them from any side.

"No!" Arthur cried, punching the tree. "Goddamnit! No!" Again he punched it, and again -- when he drew back his hand for a fourth punch, his knuckles were bloody.

"Arthur, stop it!" Gwen cried, forgetting to use his title. She ran forward, catching his arm, but his anger was so consuming that he barely noticed. He shook her off, sending her stumbling backwards into Lancelot, who caught her shoulders, steadying her. The sudden warmth of their bodies together might have made them uncomfortable on any other day. As it was, Lancelot glared at Arthur and started towards him, and Gwen caught his waist, dragging him back. "No!" she said. "Leave him. Lancelot, please!"

"He should treat you with more respect," Lancelot muttered, as Arthur's fist crashed once more into the tree, sending shards of bark flying.

"He . . . he's distracted," Gwen said miserably. When Lancelot looked at her, the heat in his eyes nearly took her breath away.

"There's no force in this world that could distract me from your beauty."

"But it seems there's force enough to make you leave," she snapped, and he fell quiet.

"Come on now, sire," Geraint was saying. "That's enough."

Arthur turned from the tree, glaring at him with such ferocity that Geraint took a step back. He'd known Arthur for years, had fought beside him too many times to count. Even in battle, Arthur was calm, composed. He fought with cool precision, a master at his craft. Geraint had never seen such naked fury on his face. Suddenly afraid, Geraint gave Breunor a desperate look. Breunor swallowed.

He recognized Arthur's expression. He'd worn it too often himself, when his anger clawed up through his skin and sent him stalking into the practice yard, desperate for a fight. More often than not, Arthur had been the one to stop his tasks and call Breunor over for a demonstration. The other knights had shaken their heads, thinking their prince was testing the newest among them too hard. Breunor had known it for the kindness it was. Arthur had given him a convenient target for his rage towards his dead father and the man who'd killed him, towards the brothers who'd divided up his property between them and sent him, shame-faced, into Camelot to find his own fortune wearing ill-fitting armour. He'd turned that rage onto Arthur, and Arthur had cooled it with the steady clang of blade against blade and with a constant, dizzying skill that had almost convinced Breunor that there might be some order in the universe after all. Now, Breunor squared his shoulders, feeling small and vulnerable without his father's armour. He stepped forward with his hand upon his hilt. He would repay the prince's gift to him, although he wasn't sure he would survive the experience.

But it was Ector who spoke. "Prince Arthur," he snapped. His voice held a commanding, yet faintly disapproving note. Arthur hadn't heard it since he, at ten, had unintentionally spooked Sir Ector's prized war horse, and he stared at Ector, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"Your father asked me to look for signs of enchantment," Ector said, speaking with calculated calmness. "Surely you realize you've been bewitched. Nothing else can account for your actions."

Arthur drew his sword, and turned it on Ector, the blade flashing silver in the faint sunlight drifting through the trees.

"I am. Not. Bewitched."

"Sire," Ector said, inclining his head slightly, as Gaius did when about to bring an uncomfortable point up with King Uther. To a casual observer, he might have seemed indifferent to the blade before his face, so minutely did he tense for action. "I had him in my sights. If you hadn't stepped in front of my bolt, Merlin would be dead."

Arthur threw the sword aside, and caught Ector by the shoulders, slamming him back against the tree "Listen here!" he yelled. "Merlin is mine, do you hear that? If any of us is going to kill him, it is damned well going to be me! I don't care what my father charged you with, I am in charge of this expedition. Is that clear?"

He stepped backwards, leaving Ector dazed and shaken. Trembling slightly, Ector dropped to one knee. "Forgive me, your highness," he said in a clipped voice. "I should have waited for your command."

"Damn right you should have!" Arthur snapped, and stalked into the woods. Lancelot and Gwen followed after him, and after a stunned moment, Ector regained his composure enough to trail after. Geraint and Breunor exchanged an unhappy look.

"Well," Breunor said, scratching behind one ear. "I suppose things could have gone worse."

After an hour of searching, they found no trace of Merlin or the hounds. Breunor swore they'd disappeared in a puff of smoke, but Geraint said they'd simply faded from sight, like an image reflected in the water and dissolved by a thrown rock. Since he'd known of Merlin's magic the longest, Lancelot felt entirely justified in arguing that he'd probably turned and walked back into the forest, like any man. Then Ector snarled that he didn't care _how_ Merlin got away, he just wanted to find him. The forest of Calidon was no place to hunt for a rogue sorcerer in the dark.

"Then light a torch," Arthur snapped, and shouldered roughly past Ector and into the darkening shadows beneath the trees -- he kept to the front of the group, where the knights couldn't see his expression. Merlin's gold eyes haunted him. He yearned to find him, to grasp Merlin's thin shoulders and shake him until recognition kindled in Merlin's eyes and he broke his eerie silence with some witty, probably insulting, comment. Arthur wanted to find _his_ Merlin. If some trace of the boy he'd known remained inside the wild man of the forest, Arthur was determined to find it: he owed that much to Merlin. With his shoulders clenched, Arthur led them deeper into the forest. They stumbled over roots and picked their way through brambles, all aware that if they were going to find Merlin again, it wouldn't be now.

"I think we ought to camp for the night," Geraint ventured once, and Arthur gave him such a venomous glare that the knight fell silent immediately.

Gwen slipped forward, and touched Arthur's arm. He tensed beneath her fingers, but she lifted herself onto tiptoes to whisper in his ear, "Arthur, please . . . he's not going to let us find him right now."

Arthur's eyes narrowed, and he pushed past her without a word. Yet half an hour later, when they reached a grove of apple trees, Arthur tossed down his bag and turned to glare at the rest of them.

"We'll camp here," he snapped, and busied himself caring for his horse.

"Thank the gods," Geraint breathed, too quiet for Arthur to hear. Breunor nodded his agreement, and reached for his horse's feedbag with a sigh.

Setting up camp was a sobering process. Shadows danced in the trees around them, and they started at every sound. Gwen started back towards the stream with her cook pot, and Lancelot, once he realized what she was doing, hurried after her, lifting the pot from her arms with a gallant bow. She glared at him, snapping something no one else could hear, and he bowed to her, slightly, catching her hand. He was speaking now, in that surprisingly earnest way he had. Arthur watched them, remembering the jealousy he'd felt upon seeing their joined hands at Heingist's stronghold. He didn't feel jealous now, didn't feel anything except for anger and confusion, worry over Merlin. Gwen snatched the pot back from Lancelot and strode towards the river, her back ramrod straight. Lancelot watched her go, then turned, and disappeared into the trees.

Breunor and Geraint went out to fetch firewood. They returned with sobering news.

"Our path is gone," Geraint said.

Ector rose to his feet. "What do you mean, gone?"

"We couldn't find it!" Breunor said, a touch of panic in his voice.

"It's probably because it's night time, yeah?" Geraint said. "We'll find it again in the morning."

"That has to be it," Lancelot said quietly. He'd slipped back to the campsite.

"Sorcery," Ector muttered.

They settled into their bedrolls quietly, with none of the conversation of the past few nights. Unable to sleep, Arthur lay in the flickering firelight, watching the woods around them. Wrapped in her cloak a few feet away, Gwen slept with her head pillowed on her arm. Lancelot snored softly on her other side. To his right, across the fire, Ector mumbled in his sleep, and Breunor sprawled beside him. They'd arranged themselves in a rough circle around the fitfully crackling fire. Between Arthur and Breunor, Geraint kept watch. He sat huddled beneath his cloak on a large rock, scooted as close to the fire as he could get, and his arms were wrapped around himself. His unsheathed sword danced with reflected firelight as it sat across his knees. Arthur's own sword lay close beside his bedroll. The sight of it made him feel sick -- treasonous. Ector had nodded approvingly as he'd watched Arthur set it out. He hadn't known that Merlin was the last person in the world that Arthur ever intended to fight.

Sighing, Arthur rolled onto his back, wondering if that might make the rocky ground any more comfortable. It didn't. With a muttered curse, he rolled onto his other side -- and froze, as he saw the tangled rose bushes beneath the trees part.

Arthur held perfectly still, afraid that the slightest movement on his part would alert Geraint. The knight hadn't seemed to notice yet. He still hummed quietly to himself as he sat on his rock. Arthur held his breath as a long, slim-fingered hand reached from the rose bush and settled on the forest floor. Another followed, and then Merlin was pulling himself through the thicket, quietly, without a sound. The branches made room for him to pass, and as Arthur watched, the tightly-curled rosebuds opened in a velvet arch around Merlin, turning their faces to him like the sun. Merlin crept into the clearing and crouched near the rosebush, one hand resting lightly on the ground for balance. Geraint still didn't see him. Merlin paid the knight no attention.

His eyes were focussed on Arthur.

They stared at each other. As before, Arthur found himself shivering from the utter wrongness of Merlin's expression. His gold eyes reflected the firelight like an animal's. Arthur swallowed, shivering. Merlin had pursed his lips, and was studying Arthur as though he were a puzzle Merlin was trying to figure out.

The moments stretched between them. Finally, Arthur couldn't take it any more. Moving slowly, quietly, so as not to alert Geraint, Arthur lifted himself onto one shoulder and extended a hand towards Merlin.

Merlin glanced at the hand, then back at Arthur's face. Gwen mumbled in her sleep, and rolled over. Arthur stilled, terrified that Geraint would look over and see Merlin. But Geraint ignored the sound, and only drew his cloak closer around him. Crickets hummed in the distance. Feeling foolish, Arthur started to withdraw his hand . . . then Merlin scooted closer.

He crept closer on hands and knees, then delicately lowered his head to sniff at Arthur's hand, like a cat. Arthur swallowed at the ticking sensation of Merlin's nose brushing against his skin. He glanced up at Arthur, looking stricken. Arthur took advantage of his momentary stillness to brush the long hair back from Merlin's face.

Like an arrow, Merlin was up, bounding towards the trees.

"What the?" Geraint started, drawing to his feet and unsheathing the sword.

"It was a deer," Arthur said.

"You're sure?" Geraint asked, taking an uneasy step towards the woods.

"I saw it," Arthur said. Yawning, he stood and stretched. No point in climbing back into his bedroll -- he knew he'd never be able to sleep after glimpsing Merlin's feral expression.

"You can go to bed," he said, clapping Geraint on the shoulder. "I'll take the rest of your watch."

Geraint watched him with suspicious eyes, but the offer was too good to turn down. Mumbling his thanks, he slipped into his own bedroll. Until dawn, Arthur stared at the spot where Merlin had disappeared, but Merlin didn't return.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Arthur woke the others when dawn's first light was still a faint, pink blush on the eastern horizon. He felt drained, exhausted, like a dishrag wrung out and hung to dry. The others crept, shivering, from their bedrolls in the frigid autumn air, looking about as horrible as Arthur felt.

Lancelot yawned loudly, his dark hair sticking up in the back. Gwen hid a smile behind her hand at the sight of him, amusement crinkling the skin around her eyes. Breunor had shed his breeches sometime in the night, and didn't bother to find them before stalking into the woods to take a piss, dressed only in his long shift and the red cloak in which he'd bundled himself through the night. The long, lean muscles of his thighs, dark against the white linen, caught Arthur's eyes. Something prickled uncomfortably in his stomach, and he turned away.

Already dressed and wearing his mail, Ector knelt before the fire, coaxing the embers back to flames. Gwen knelt in the dirt beside him, and drove three iron poles into the ground with practiced ease. She arranged them in a neat triangle around the fire, and, standing, brought their tips together, forming a simple tripod over the dancing flames. A chain dangled from the top.

Ector examined the clever mechanism holding the tripod in place, and nodded, impressed.

"Your father made this, didn't he?"

"Yes," Gwen said, smiling sadly.

Ector leaned back on his haunches, shaking his head. "Damn fine blacksmith, old Tom," he said. "It's a shame he turned out to be consorting with a sorcerer."

Tears welled in Gwen's eyes. In a stiff motion, she bent to retrieve the cook pot, and started towards the stream for water.

Ector looked up to find Arthur and Lancelot glaring at him. "What?" he asked.

"She lost her father," Arthur said. "You'd do well to show some sympathy." Turning, he started to walk towards Gwen -- but Lancelot had got there first. They knelt at the stream together, Gwen filling the pot while Lancelot rested a hand on her shoulder, speaking to her. Arthur couldn't hear what he said, but Gwen smiled shakily. When she rose, Lancelot took the pot from her, and gallantly offered her his arm. She took it.

Frowning, Arthur looked away. Geraint had stopped to watch him, one arm in his shirt, the other out.

"What are you looking at?" Arthur snapped.

"Nothing, sire," Geraint said quickly, pulling on the shirt. "It's just . . ." Arthur lifted an eyebrow. Geraint glanced at the ground. "I like Lancelot," he said. "He's a good man. It's a damn shame he couldn't join the knighthood. But, well, if I were in your position, sire, I'd protect what was mine."

"If I want your advice, Geraint, I'll ask for it." Arthur glared at him until the other knight blushed, and looked away. "Besides," Arthur added quietly. "Guinevere isn't mine. She's her own person." And Lancelot was of her station, Arthur thought, but didn't say. What could Arthur offer her? Stolen kisses in Merlin's room? The chance to carry a royal bastard? Marriage glimmering like a dream in the far-off future after his father's death? Lancelot could marry her now, if he liked. She could be happy with him.

Breunor returned from the woods, looking just as sleepy and still wearing only his cloak and shift. He watched hopefully as Gwen showed Lancelot how the cook pot hooked over the fire.

"Tea?" he asked.

"And porridge," Gwen promised.

"For God's sake, man, put your trousers on!" Geraint said, throwing them at him. "I don't want to stare at your naked arse all day."

To be fair, Breunor's cloak covered his arse -- not that Arthur had noticed, of course -- but as Breunor bent to retrieve the breeches, he swept the red folds of it aside, giving them all a view.

Geraint howled, clasping a hand to his eyes as if blinded, and Ector just shook his head, glancing up as if for patience. Gwen giggled, her hand over her mouth. Lancelot glanced from her to Breunor, now wearing the breeches, and drew himself up to his full height.

"What are you thinking?" Lancelot demanded. "There's a lady present!" He stepped in front of Breunor, arms crossed, waiting for a response.

"Guinevere isn't a lady," Breunor pointed out, and Lancelot punched him.

Breunor staggered backwards, caught unawares. For a moment, they all stared in stunned silence at the blood trickling down from his nose. Then Breunor bellowed and launched himself at Lancelot. "You bastard!"

Gwen gasped, scrambling backwards. Lancelot allowed Breunor's momentum to carry him down, and as his back hit the rocky ground, he pumped his legs up, flipping them so he straddled the knight. Geraint and Ector stood, seconds away from joining the fight themselves.

"That's enough!" Arthur yelled. Lancelot hesitated, and Breunor took advantage of his distraction to knee him, hard, in the gut.

Pushing past Geraint and Ector, Arthur pulled a gasping Lancelot off Breunor, and extended a hand to his knight. Breunor pulled himself up, and started forward, but Arthur stopped him with a hand to his chest.

"Enough," he repeated, looking from one to the other. Lancelot was still winded, gasping for breath. Breunor's nose was a bloody mess, but at least it didn't look broken. "We're not here to fight each other," Arthur snapped. "Lancelot, Breunor is right, Guinevere is not a lady of the court."

Lancelot opened his mouth to protest, and Breunor smirked. Arthur's glare silenced both of them. "However," he continued, "Guinevere has joined us as a favour to me. Breunor, I expect you to treat her with the same courtesy you'd show a lady nonetheless. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sire," Breunor said, his face sullen, but his eyes murderous. Lancelot gave a stiff nod. Favouring each of them with one more glare, Arthur released his hand. They glared at each other a second longer, then Breunor haughtily turned his back and stormed into the woods. Geraint stared at Arthur in disbelief, then shook his head, and took off after Breunor.

Lancelot brushed close to Arthur. "If you would protect her," he snarled, too low for anyone else to hear, "I wouldn't have to, _sire_."

Arthur held his eyes for a long moment. Finally, Lancelot turned and stalked towards the horses. Gwen gave Arthur a sympathetic smile, and hurried after him.

"Sire," Ector said from his seat on the log, "are you certain you trust that man? He seems remarkably unstable."

Arthur glared at him. "Lancelot is the most honourable man I know," he snapped, and stalked into the woods to look for Merlin.

Beyond the clearing, shadows covered the forest, the pale morning light shimmering through the heavy foliage in faint beams. Each ray of sunlight had a sickly, pale cast. We've fought through the branches, they seemed to say. Now let us die.

Arthur stuck to the shadows. "Merlin," he called, as loudly as he dared. "Merlin, are you there?"

A rustling came from the juniper bush behind him. Arthur turned eagerly, but it was only Ector, trying to shadow him stealthily, and failing miserably.

"You may as well come out," he called irritably. "I know you're there."

Ector stood, having the grace to look embarrassed, at least. "I was only following the king's orders," he said.

"I know what you were doing," Arthur said.

Ector gave him a thoughtful, kind look. Arthur remembered it well from when he was a young man. Then, he'd soaked up the empathy his father too rarely showed him. But Arthur wasn't a teenage boy anymore, and Ector's expression seemed suddenly patronizing.

"It must be difficult, hunting your former servant," Ector said. "I've heard that he showed considerable loyalty to you in his time at Camelot."

"What's difficult, Ector," Arthur said, "is not being able to do my job because my own bloody knights keep getting in the way."

"Pardon me, Prince Arthur," Ector said politely. "But I swore fealty to your father, not to you."

Arthur gave him a steely look. "Do you deny my authority to lead this mission?" he asked, voice dangerously cool.

Ector actually looked as though he were considering it. "No," he said at last. "You have done an admirable job leading the knights since you became captain of the guard. You are a skilled strategist. The very fact that King Uther gave you command of this mission speaks to your abilities."

"But?" Arthur asked, crossing his arms.

Ector shrugged mildly. "My lord," he said, "you've admitted yourself that the sorcerer had you under an enchantment. Surely you know that a mind once enchanted can easily be overtaken again."

"I will _not_ let Merlin enchant me," Arthur said.

Inclining his head minutely, Ector said, "Nonetheless, sire, I have promised the king to protect you from the sorcerer's wiles. I will continue to do so to the best of my abilities."

"Fine," Arthur said. "Just don't get in my way while you're doing it."

He started back to camp, with Ector at his heels.

When they made it back, Breunor and Geraint had already returned. They huddled with Gwen and Lancelot, the four of them holding a hushed conversation. For a moment, Arthur worried that another fight might be brewing, but as he drew closer, he got a better look at their body language. Geraint was gesturing frantically with his hands, and Breunor was nodding, casting cautious glances back into the forest. Gwen was wringing her hands nervously, and Lancelot's shoulders were drawn and cautious.

"Sire!" Geraint cried, seeing Arthur and Ector step from the trees.

"What is it?" Arthur asked, hastening towards them. "Did you find Merlin?"

"No, sire," Breunor said. "We went looking for our tracks from yesterday. They're gone."

"What do you mean, gone?" Arthur asked. "Six sets of horse-tracks don't disappear in a single night, especially not on ground as soft as this."

"I know, sire!" Geraint said. "But they're gone. We tried finding the way we came in, but it's completely disappeared."

Arthur didn't bother to hide the smirk inching across his face. "When we get back to Camelot, remind me to take you both hunting. You clearly need some practice finding your way in the forest."

Breunor bristled. "I've been hunting since I was a boy! I know how to find my way in the woods. But there's something different about this place."

Geraint nodded seriously. "It's sorcery," he said. "Perhaps Merlin doesn't want us to leave."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Since you are both being such children about this, I'll look under the bed and tell you that there aren't any monsters there. Follow me."

Breunor and Geraint shared an annoyed glance, then stepped into line behind their prince as he swaggered towards the stream. Ector fell in beside them, and after a moment, Lancelot and Gwen followed curiously. Arthur led them to the soft earth by the streambed, where they'd brought the horses for water late the previous night.

"Observe," he said, dropping to a crouch and inspecting the ground.

He ran a gloved hand over the fallen leaves by the streambed, and frowned. A moment later, he dropped to his hands and knees, searching the ground frantically. Failing to find any hint of the horses' tracks, he leapt to his feet and paced up and down the stream, eyes fixed to the ground.

"You see?" Geraint asked, a sharp edge of fear in his voice.

Arthur frowned. "Show me the path you tried to follow," he said.

"We were heading south yesterday," Breunor said. "I remember -- the sun was setting."

Nodding, Arthur said, "I remember. Let's head north, then." He set out, and the others followed more cautiously. For a long time, the forest was quiet, save for the laboured sound of their breath as they climbed over fallen logs and picked their way through brambles. As they walked, they all watched the woods around them, trying to reconcile the russet and ochre leaves and the patches of sunlight slipping through the foliage with the darkness they'd chased Merlin through last night. They might have travelled two different forests, so different were the two sights.

"That looks familiar," Gwen said hopefully, glancing at a particularly gnarled apple tree.

Arthur looked at it, and groaned. "That's because we've passed it three times."

"He's got us walking in circles!" Geraint said.

"Let's split up," Arthur instructed. "Gwen and Lancelot, you head east. Geraint and Breunor, go north. Ector and I will head west."

Nodding grimly, they separated and started off.

"I hear something," Breunor said, reaching for his sword.

"Me, too," Geraint whispered.

Cautiously, they crept ahead -- only to startle as Arthur and Ector stepped around the trunk of an enormous oak. Moments later, Gwen and Lancelot stepped in.

"We're trapped," Ector said grimly.

"We'll find a way out," Arthur said. "After we find Merlin."

"We'll have to lure him out," Ector said.

"And how, exactly, do you propose we do that?" Arthur asked.

"I found this in his room," Ector said. Reaching into the pocket of his surcoat, he pulled out the carved wooden dragon Merlin used to keep on his nightstand.

"But that's --" Gwen started, and bit her lip. She glanced fearfully at Arthur, who was scowling.

"He's had that for ages," Arthur said, trying to sound nonchalant. "I don't think it means anything to him. He didn't even bring it with him to the battlefield."

"It was the only interesting thing he had in his room," Ector said defensively. "What did you expect me to do, track down his mother and bring her here?"

The thought chilled Arthur, but he kept his face impassive. "Of course not," he said.

Breunor took the carved dragon from Ector, and turned it around in his hands, the pale birch white against his hands. "It doesn't look like much," he said dubiously. "But I suppose it's worth a try."

"It's all we've got," agreed Geraint.

"What are you planning to do?" Lancelot asked. "Wave it around in the air and hope he shows up to take it from you?"

"We'll set a trap with it," Ector said, snatching the dragon back from Lancelot.

Under Ector's direction, Geraint and Breunor dug a pit and sharpened sticks of wood, pounding them into the ground at the bottom.

"He's not a wild animal," Arthur protested, once he realized what they were doing. Unbidden, came Merlin's golden eyes, his face gaunt and feral in the moonlight, and Arthur felt a sliver of doubt at his own words. He dismissed it. "He's seen traps like these on hunting trips," he added, more for his own benefit than out of any real conviction of swaying Ector. "He'll never fall for it."

"Do you have a better suggestion, sire?" Ector panted as he worked.

Arthur just shrugged, nervously scanning the trees for Merlin. He wished he felt as sure of his words as he'd sounded. True, Merlin had seen such traps on hunting trips -- but this Merlin seemed half animal himself. If he'd forgotten Arthur, who could tell if he'd remember a simple hunting trap?

Lancelot watched them for awhile, a disgusted expression on his face. Finally, he shook his head, declared that he'd have no part in this, and set off in the opposite direction to hunt for food. Geraint and Breunor gave Arthur identical flummoxed expressions, each of them saying, "Are you really going to let him get away with that, Sire?" without ever needing to open their mouths. Arthur only stared them down until, ducking their heads awkwardly, the two knights turned away and continued working.

They wove long, thin branches over the top of the pit they'd dug, creating a wooden platform that would easily crumble beneath a grown man's weight. Gathering the red and gold leaves that covered the ground, they scattered them over the woven branches, disguising them. When they'd finished, the pit was nearly indistinguishable from the forest floor. At last, Geraint leaned precariously over the pit, and set the wooden dragon on the middle of the platform.

"Excellent work, men," Ector said, patting their shoulders. "Since the sorcerer has learned to act like a wild animal, we're going to treat him as such."

They all drew into the bushes to hide. Hours passed. Geraint's stomach rumbled, and Ector glared at him. Breunor fell asleep for awhile. Even Arthur felt himself drifting off, lulled by the quiet sounds of the forest. Then something rustled the holly bushes a few feet away.

They all froze for a moment, eyeing the green foliage with suspicion. The forest seemed eerily quiet for a moment -- even the birdsong had faded. Then another crack sounded, then another, then Merlin stepped out of the woods with Ector's hounds trailing him. A sparrow perched on his shoulder. When they reached the clearing, the hounds sniffed, confused, recognizing the scent of their former master.

Merlin said something to them in a series of yips, and they responded in the same language. Laughing, Merlin leaned forward to scratch one behind the ears, pat another on the head. He spoke to them again, softly, in their own language. Then, Merlin stood and stepped onto the mesh.

No! Arthur thought. He started to rise up, to warn Merlin away, already knowing he was too late -- slight as he was, Merlin's weight would still snap the thin branches with which they'd covered the pit. But, miraculously, the mesh held strong. Merlin crouched down to lift the little dragon, and turned it around in his hands. Curiously he sniffed at it. His lips were pursed, brows furrowed.

"Why isn't it working?" Breunor whispered.

"Shhh!" Ector hissed.

Finally, Merlin stood, and stepped nimbly off the wooden mesh. He gave the wooden dragon one more curious glance, then shrugged and tossed it over his shoulder, into the undergrowth. Despite himself, Arthur felt his heart sink.

Merlin hadn't recognized it.

The hounds congregated around Merlin again, ears alert and tails wagging. He patted one's head, scratched another's ears. Again, one of the hounds growled in the direction of Arthur and the knights. Merlin patted it, seeming unconcerned, but his brow was drawn, as though he were thinking hard on something.

Waving a hand into the forest, he sent the hounds dashing away, their howls echoing through the trees. Turning back to the men hiding in the bushes, Merlin smiled, eerily, and nodded his head.

Suddenly, they found themselves at the bottom of the pit, looking up at the leaves above.

"Shit!" Breunor gasped -- Merlin had practically set him atop one of the sharpened stakes; his feet planted on either side of it. The others were in similar straits. None of them were hurt by the wooden stakes, but Merlin had positioned them uncomfortably close to them, so that moving was difficult.

"That treacherous bastard!" Geraint snarled, carefully extricating his sleeve from where it had snagged on the splintered wood.

Arthur glared at him. "He could have killed you if he'd set you down five inches to the left. He could have killed all of us. Think about that."

It took over an hour for them to pry the wooden stakes from the ground and pile them safely in a corner, and the rest of the afternoon to climb out of the pit. It was possible to reach the top when one man stood on another's shoulders, but the dirt around the pit was dry and brittle. It crumbled every time someone's fingers grasped hold of it, sending the climber falling backwards and the others reaching to steady him. By the time Lancelot and Gwen grew worried and came looking for them, around sunset, they were all bruised and scraped, and so thoroughly covered in dirt that they all (especially Breunor, who was notoriously fastidious) despaired of ever getting clean again.

One by one, Lancelot helped them climb out of the trap. The knights at once started for the campsite, eager to wash and eat. Arthur hesitated, though, and doubling back, dropped to his hands and knees, searching through the underbrush.

"What are you looking for?" Lancelot asked, moving to stand behind him. His solid presence was comforting.

Arthur looked up at him, sighed, and said, "Merlin threw his wooden dragon somewhere around here. I wanted to find it."

Lancelot's eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he dropped to his own knees and joined in the search. They hunted through the undergrowth for awhile in silence.

Finally, Lancelot ventured, "You're not really planning to kill Merlin, are you?"

"No," Arthur admitted. "You're not the only one who owes him your life."

Lancelot nodded, not looking at all surprised. "Do the others know?"

"Gwen does. Geraint and Breunor might suspect -- I can't tell."

"You're pretending for Ector's benefit, then?"

Arthur glared at the ground. "Sir Ector," he enunciated bitterly, is under the strictest orders from my father not to let me fall under, and I quote, the warlock Merlin's sorcery. He's watching me like a hawk."

"I gathered that." Lancelot sat back on his haunches and studied Arthur, something kind, but questioning, in his gaze. At last he said, "You are a prince, and you don't need advice from commoners like myself."

"You've got that right."

"But if you were an ordinary man," Lancelot persisted, as though Arthur hadn't spoken, "I'd tell you to be honest with your men. They deserve to know which side you're on."

"I am _not_," Arthur spat, "on a side. My father sent us to ensure that Merlin was no threat to Camelot. I don't need to kill him to establish that. I'm not even sure he could find his way back to Camelot in this condition."

"Please forgive my presumption," Lancelot said at once. He ducked his head in a small bow, then straightened. As he did, he spied a shock of white from the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw Merlin's dragon, half-hidden beneath a patch of clover. Plucking it from the ground and dusting it off, Lancelot handed the dragon to Arthur, who took it from carefully, holding it in his cupped hands as though it were fragile. Lancelot watched him, but didn't speak. They walked back to camp in companionable silence.

Gwen had made a soup, fragrant with mushrooms and wild sorrel, but the knights ate it without tasting a single spoonful. After dinner, by unspoken agreement, Geraint and Breunor set out into the woods to search for their path. The sun was setting in the west, and they both agreed that if they walked straight towards it, they were bound to get somewhere at least. Following the reddened sky, they set out from the campsite and -- still following it -- they returned not fifteen minutes later. It seemed that Merlin had trapped them in the apple grove even more efficiently than in the pit they'd dug for him.

That night, Arthur waited until Ector was snoring to slip from his bedroll under the pretence of taking a piss. Stepping into the forest, he crouched, and set the dragon tenderly on a mossy stone. Touching a finger to its carved head, he glanced up at the forest, and spoke aloud.

"I don't know what this meant to Merlin," he said, feeling vaguely ridiculous. "But it meant something. He wouldn't want to see it thrown away."

Reluctantly leaving the dragon, Arthur padded back to camp. Breunor was keeping watch tonight. He nodded at Arthur pensively as he climbed into his bedroll.

"It's been an odd day," Breunor said.

"That it has." Arthur rolled over in his bedroll, trying to get comfortable. He got the feeling that Breunor was waiting to speak. After a moment, the knight stepped around the fire and knelt to sit cross-legged beside Arthur.

"Sire," he said after a moment. "What do we do if we can't kill Merlin?"

"You mean if he's too strong for us?" Arthur asked. Breunor nodded, his face serious for once. Sitting up in his bedroll, Arthur set a hand on his shoulder.

"There is no shame in acknowledging the strength of an enemy," he said firmly. "And as for Merlin . . . if we can't defeat him, I suppose we head back to Camelot."

"And leave him here?" Breunor asked, wide-eyed.

Arthur shrugged. "Do you think that he's a threat to Camelot?" he asked.

Breunor hesitated for a moment, scrutinizing Arthur carefully, as though he were a teacher asking a trick question on an test. "No," he said at last. "If he'd wanted to kill us, he could have done so already. He's a sorcerer, but I don't think he means any harm."

Arthur smiled at him. "Exactly. There are men like Ector who see only the letter of the law. You're better than that, Breunor, because you see the spirit behind it. Whatever happens, all will be well, because we act with honour." Clapping Breunor on the shoulder, he settled back into his bedroll. "Wake me when it's my watch," he said, and, rolling over, turned his back to the other man.

Exhausted from an afternoon spent attempting to climb out of a pit, Arthur fell asleep faster than he thought he would. When Breunor woke him a few hours later, he started, reaching clumsily for his sword.

"It's just me," Breunor said, smiling, his teeth shining in his dark face. "It's your watch, sire."

Nodding groggily, Arthur slipped out of his bedroll and took his knight's spot by the fire. Breunor climbed into his own bedroll, and was asleep practically before his head hit the ground. Poking at the fire, Arthur sighed, and tried to wake up.

A chill wind blew through the forest, skittering leaves along the ground and rustling the branches of the trees. Arthur watched the flames struggle to sustain themselves in the face of it. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted. The stars inched across the sky overhead. Feeling himself start to nod off, Arthur stood, stretched his arms above his head -- then froze mid-movement.

Merlin stood on the other side of the grove. Arthur had no idea how long he'd been there.

He might have grown from the forest floor himself, so quietly did he stand. His hair fell like vines around his shoulders, tangled with fallen leaves and twigs. With the branches rising from the tree behind him, he looked, for a moment, almost as though he had antlers. His beard looked like moss in the darkness. From beneath the shadow of his brow, his eyes burned like coals in his gaunt face. One hand rested on a thick fallen branch, on which he leaned like a walking staff. In the other hand, he held the curved dragon.

Merlin caught him looking, and studied him for a moment, his expression strangely old in his young face. Finally, Merlin inclined his head in a gesture of acknowledgement that was so human it nearly took Arthur's breath away. Stepping forward, Merlin abandoned the walking stick (it remained standing upright) and reached to take Arthur's hand.

His expression never changing, Merlin opened Arthur's palm, peeling back his fingers gently, one-by-one. It didn't even occur to Arthur to pull away. He felt frozen on the spot, transfixed by the night, by the moon, by the wind, by Merlin's otherworldly appearance.

Again giving him that odd little nod, Merlin set the dragon into Arthur's palm, and curled his fingers over it.

"It's yours," Arthur protested.

Merlin nodded, then shook his head. Frowning, as though it took great effort, he murmured, "Keep it safe." His voice was as rough as splintered bark. " For Merlin."

And with that, he disappeared.

It's all falling apart, Gwen thought, waking the next morning and looking at the others arranged in their bedrolls around the fire like spokes of a wheel. It was still dark -- she'd always woken before dawn -- and the flickering light of the fire cast everything half into shadows. Lingering in her bedroll, for the air was unseasonably cold, even for October, and she'd managed to build up some warmth during the night, she thought of fighting raiders in Ealdor alongside Merlin, Arthur, and Morgana. She'd felt like more than Gwen the maidservant in Ealdor -- as far as she could tell, it was the thrill of being part of something so much larger than herself. She'd been half in love with all three them in Ealdor: Morgana, so fiercely _alive_ with a sword in her hands; Arthur, so noble and heroic; and Merlin, so sweetly protective of his mother and village. Gwen blushed thinking back to how sweet and ineffectual, she'd thought him at the time. How blind she'd been! From the soldiers' talk, Merlin had killed nearly twenty Mercian knights in the ravine he'd opened on the battlefield, and that was in addition to facing down Morgause. They, not he, had been the hindrance in Ealdor. Alone, Merlin probably could have defeated all of the raiders without taking a scratch. She'd been wrong to underestimate Merlin. She'd been wrong about a lot of things.

She'd been half in love with them all, and at the time, she hadn't even known what love was. It was their closeness that had buoyed her, the four of them working together for a common purpose. She'd hoped it might stay with them when they returned to Camelot. And it had, she supposed, for a little while, at least. But so many things had changed since then, and the fragile solidarity they'd built in Ealdor hadn't been able to withstand it. How could it? First her father's death, and then Morgana's disappearance, and finally, Merlin's. _It's all falling apart,_ Gwen thought again. She'd hoped that leaving Camelot with Arthur might help to slow this progressive unravelling of her life, of everything she held dear. Instead, everything was even more complicated now.

Rolling over in her bedroll, she watched Lancelot, snoring softly a few feet away. Every breath he took ruffled his dark hair, and the sight was like an ache in her stomach. She wanted to scream, to sob, to rend her hair. It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair of him to leave her, and then -- when she'd finally stopped dreaming about him every night, when she didn't wake every morning with the scent of his body in her nostrils -- _then_ he returned. But not for her.

He'd followed her to the stream yesterday when she went for water.

"Please forgive me," he'd said. "I couldn't bear to come between you and Arthur."

"Shouldn't that have been my choice?" she'd answered, bristling at him.

"I could never compete with Arthur," Lancelot had answered, dropping his head. "I hold you both too dear."

The sincere, martyring tone in his voice had made her want to slap him, or shove him, head-first, into the water. Instead, she'd snatched the cook pot from his hands and stormed off to the river herself, daring him to follow and half hoping that he would.

He hadn't.

Sighing, Gwen slipped from her bedroll, unwilling to be alone with her thoughts any longer. Geraint had woken and, still wrapped in his bedroll, was staring wearily into the trees. But when Gwen knelt to roll up her bedding, he watched her instead. She wore only her chemise and, kneeling so, the neckline gaped open, offering an almost unbroken view of her bare breasts, the hard nubs of her nipples standing up in the cold. Glancing up, she caught him staring and blushed, snatching the fabric up. Taking the cook pot under her arm, she walked to the stream for water, carrying herself with as much dignity as she could muster, despite her flaming cheeks.

When she returned, the others were beginning to crawl out of their bedrolls, all of them huddling under cloaks and chafing their hands together to keep warm. Smiling wanly at them, Gwen knelt before the fire to start breakfast. Her fingers were so cold, splashed wet with water, that it took her a few tries to fasten the pot onto the tripod. Ector saw her struggling, and stood to help her, closing his large hands over her own. There was something fatherly in the smile he gave her then, and for a moment, she was almost inclined to like him.

"This isn't natural," Ector said, and his breath clouded the air. "It wasn't nearly this cold yesterday."

"Has anything here been natural?" Arthur asked mildly. He'd settled on a rock with his sword over his knees, and was honing the edges with a whetstone. Since Merlin's disappearance and Caleb's hasty promotion, Arthur had got used to caring for his weapons himself.

As was quickly becoming routine, Geraint and Breunor struck into the forest looking for a way out. This time, as an experiment, Geraint tore a strip from his tunic and used it to blindfold himself.

"I've got a theory," he told Breunor, as the other knight helped him with the knot. "Maybe we're not really stuck here. Maybe we just think we are. He might be screwing with our vision, see?"

Breunor nodded, wearing a dubious expression that was mirrored on the face of every other person at the campsite.

"If I can't see where I'm going, he can't mess with me," Geraint said proudly. "I've always had a good sense of direction. Maybe I can lead us out."

"But I'll still be able to see," Breunor said.

"Well, yeah," Geraint conceded. "But only to keep me from walking into trees or stepping off the edge of a cliff. Otherwise you'll follow me. Okay?"

"It's got to be more interesting than walking in circles around the campsite," Breunor said with a shrug. He set a hand on Geraint's shoulder, allowing him to lead, but they'd only taken a few stumbling steps before he had to steer the other knight around a stump.

"They're insane," Lancelot said, as they disappeared into the trees.

"At least they're trying," Ector snapped. "It's a fat lot more than you've done."

Lancelot's lips narrowed into a thin line. "I'm only here because of Guinevere," he said shortly. "I've sworn to her that I won't interfere with your quest, and my honour forbids me from breaking that oath. But don't think for a second that I'm going to help you harm Merlin."

"We won't need your help," Ector snapped. Turning his back on Lancelot, Ector picked up his own sword and began to sharpen it furiously.

Arthur shared an uneasy glance with Gwen and Lancelot. Deep within the forest, a sudden howling broke through the silence, startling all of them.

"Are those Ector's hounds?" Gwen asked, rising to her feet. The baying grew louder, a panicked edge to it.

"It sounds like it," Lancelot said.

A crashing through the undergrowth alerted them, and they all turned to see Breunor and Geraint running back. Geraint had abandoned the blindfold, and both of their faces were red from running. Once inside the circle of the glade, they had to stop and rest their hands on their knees, drawing in gasping breaths of air. Their hearts pounded beneath their thin tunics.

"A storm is coming!" Geraint gasped. "The birds are all taking shelter."

Sure enough, the sky was darkening overhead, thunderheads visible through the tree branches.

"Let's try to find shelter," Arthur said. "When it starts raining, we'll be in trouble."

Moving quickly, for the air around them was beginning to smell sharp and the southern sky flared with flashes of sheet lightning, they spread spare blankets over tree limbs and fastened them into the ground with the handful of stakes Gwen had thought to bring, forming rudimentary tents. Already, a few light raindrops were splashing the ground, while the dark clouds overhead threatened more, and quickly.

"They won't keep out the rain," Ector said, eyeing their handiwork. "But it's better than nothing I suppose."

Over their head, the sky flickered with lightning. Thunder clapped a fraction of a second later, shaking the ground, and they fled beneath the wool blankets as the rain began to pour. They huddled in their crude tents, staring miserably out at the rain.

Yet something was odd. Though rain shook the branches of the apple trees around them and ran in tiny rivulets over the mossy ground, no water penetrated the wool under which they'd sought shelter. Geraint noticed first: watching the steady drip of rain from the branch of the tree he'd thrown his blanket over, he suddenly realized that his head was perfectly dry. Frowning, he touched the blanket above him. It wasn't damp. The fibres weren't even swollen with rain. Frowning, he stepped outside into the deluge, and barked a startled laugh that brought the others out to see what he'd found.

In a perfect circle above the tents, about a foot overhead, the rain collected and puddled on an invisible barrier. They stared up at it dumbly. Hesitantly, Arthur pressed his palm against it, feeling something cool and smooth, like glass. Yet when he rapped his knuckles against it, the barrier moved, slightly, above his hand, a small ripple going through the collected raindrops.

"This is sorcery," Ector breathed.

"I don't mind sorcery when it keeps me dry," Geraint said cheekily, then, remembering that Uther Pendragon's son stood among them, hastened to add, "Um, that was only a joke, sire."

"It's all right," Arthur said, sticking a hand outside the barrier to watch the water pool in his cupped palm. "Perhaps some sorcery is worse than others. Wouldn't you say, Ector?"

"I think it's all rotten," Ector answered stuffily, but Arthur noticed he refused to move from beneath the magic shielding them from the rain.

"Well," Breunor said thoughtfully, "if he wanted us dead, he wouldn't bother keeping us dry, right?"

Lancelot snorted. "If he wanted us dead, we'd be dead already."

They passed the afternoon lounging under the barrier, sharing small talk and nibbling on smoked meat and bread -- none of them wanted to start a fire and flood their tiny shelter with smoke. At one point, Merlin stepped boldly into the clearing and grinned cheekily at them. He hadn't bothered keeping himself dry, and his dark hair streamed down his neck like rain. Arthur swallowed at the droplets pooled on Merlin's chest and shoulders.

The knights rose as one to lunge for him, but Merlin scrambled up into the trees quickly as a squirrel, and peered down from the branches watching them. After a half-hearted attempt to climb the tree, both of them getting thoroughly soaked in the process, Geraint and Breunor quickly gave up. Even Ector seemed to see the folly in chasing Merlin up a tree when the sorcerer could leap from limb to limb as nimbly as a flying squirrel. The knights returned to the tent sullenly, Breunor's dark curls frizzing about his face and Geraint's shorter hair plastered to his forehead.

As quickly as it started, the rain drizzled to a close a few hours later. By then, the evening sky was already beginning to darken. They built a fire and gathered around it while Gwen fried venison from the buck Lancelot had killed the day before and sliced turnips from her pack. They ate together in companionable silence, the cosiness from under the tents lingering.

"I never thought it'd be this boring, hunting down a sorcerer," Breunor said after dinner, flopping down onto his bedroll and folding his long hands behind his head. "If I'd known that all we'd do is sit around the campsite watching him climb trees, I'd have brought along my lute."

"You play?" Geraint asked, looking down at him in surprise.

Breunor shrugged. "Yeah, I play. My mother insisted."

Even Ector had taken some interest in the conversation. "I don't recall you playing back in Camelot."

Breunor rolled his eyes. "Well, I've only been there a few months, haven't I? We haven't exactly had a lot of downtime before now."

With a shower of leaves, Merlin dropped down from the apple tree across the grove, his bare feet landing whisper-soft on the grass. Ector made a half-hearted lunge for him out of some remaining sense of obligation, but wasn't surprised when a tree root slipped out of the ground, tripping him. For their parts, Geraint and Breunor only waved.

Merlin gave them a particularly demented grin, and waved his hand towards a rock. His eyes flashed gold, and the rock was a lute.

The knights all stared at it as if it were a wild animal, ready to pounce. Hesitantly, Breunor got to his feet and circled it.

"I'm not sure you should touch that," Geraint said warily.

"Oh, come on," Gwen said. "He's hardly going to kill you with a lute." They all turned to stare at her, lute forgotten, and she blushed prettily, wringing her hands. "I'm sorry, sir," she said.

"No, you're right," Breunor said. Stepping forward, he gingerly grasped the lute by its neck.

He held it to the light and examined it. Then his eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward into the sunlight, turning the lute around and around in his slim, dark hands. "I don't believe it," he breathed.

"What is it?" Ector asked, voice sharp.

"This is my lute! From home! I'd recognize it anywhere."

"Well," Arthur said mildly from his own bedroll. "You did say you wanted it."

Eyes wide, Breunor only nodded. He fit his hands to the strings, giving it a cautious strum. Frowning, he tuned it, then tried again, nodding more approvingly.

"Any requests?" he asked, setting one foot on a rock and cradling the lute in his arms.

During one of Breunor's bawdier songs, Arthur slipped away from the ring of firelight and into the dark embrace of the trees. Gwen caught his eye as he was leaving, tilting her head questioningly at him. He gave her a wary smile in return, and she turned her attention back to the chain mail she was patching for Lancelot, recognizing Arthur's need to be alone. Once free from the music and laughter, Arthur felt the tightness in his chest begin to ease. Finding an apple tree with a low-lying crook, Arthur rested his elbows upon it, clasping his hands before him. He leaned out over the tree, surveying the shadowed woods beyond. The moon was a thumbnail crescent overhead, its faint light casting patchwork shadows through the tangled tree limbs and onto the forest floor below. Arthur frowned. He missed the fields and mountains visible from his bedroom window in Camelot. In the distance, an owl hooted. An answering hoot responded overhead, and starting, Arthur looked up to find Merlin lying full-length along a branch like a lynx. Arthur prided himself on his senses, honed by years of hunting, but he hadn't heard Merlin settle on the tree branch. Had he followed Arthur out here, or had he been here all along?

Golden eyes shining eerily in the darkness, Merlin favoured Arthur with a fey smile and dropped to the ground, landing softly on all fours. Bouncing to his feet, Merlin stepped into Arthur's space, still smiling. Their eyes met, and Arthur swallowed, searching (as he had earlier) for some sign of the boy he'd known in Camelot behind those golden eyes, glimmering with magic. Now that they'd found Merlin, Arthur missed him more than ever.

"Merlin," Arthur choked, voice breaking. Embarrassed, he turned away from Merlin, bringing a hand to his eyes.

To his shock, a slim hand touched his wrist, stilling the motion. Stiffening, Arthur started to pull away, but Merlin held on with surprising strength. His long thumb rubbed slow circles on Arthur's pulse point, and despite himself, Arthur started to relax. Greatly daring, he lifted his free hand to settle on Merlin's bare shoulder, stroking the smooth, sun-warmed skin beneath his hand.

"Merlin," he breathed.

Now Merlin's other hand had risen, catching Arthur's hand and lying it open. His finger traced a rune on Arthur's palm, and it lingered for a second, glowing nearly as gold as Merlin's eyes, before fading back into Arthur's skin like water would fade into a well. His palm tingled with the touch of it.

"What was that?" Arthur asked.

Merlin didn't answer, at least not in words. Smiling up at Arthur, he let his fingers drift over the sensitive skin of Arthur's palm to skitter over his wrist. Arthur shuddered as Merlin's fingers slipped under the sleeve of his tunic, rubbing wider and wider circles on his bare arm. Gripping Merlin's shoulder, Arthur held on tightly. He felt like Merlin's touch was shaking him apart and that, conversely, only the grip of his hand on Merlin's shoulder could keep him grounded. Then Merlin's fingers strayed higher, brushing the fabric that Arthur had tied above his elbow, and Arthur's world slammed back into focus.

Brushing furiously, he tried to pull away, but Merlin held on, stubbornly. Long fingers peeled up Arthur's sleeve, exposing the soiled blue neckerchief. Merlin stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending. Swallowing, Arthur reached with his free hand to clumsily untie the knot. He pressed the neckerchief into Merlin's hand.

Releasing Arthur, Merlin held the square of stained fabric up to the moonlight, turning it around and around in his hands, like a puzzle he couldn't quite solve.

Stepping closer, Arthur touched the back of Merlin's hand, stalling the motion, and took the cloth back. Folding it into a triangle, he lifted his hands to Merlin's neck. Merlin froze, eyeing him suspiciously, and Arthur swallowed. For the first time, he realized how easily Merlin could destroy him. If he wanted to, Merlin could kill Arthur before he even had the chance to draw his sword. Steeling his courage, Arthur touched Merlin's shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. Bringing his hands around Merlin's neck, he brushed the long, dark hair aside and tied the neckerchief back in place, swallowing at the brush of his fingers against the soft, smooth skin of Merlin's neck. He kept his gaze focussed on the neckerchief, afraid to look into Merlin's face and see a stranger there. But long fingers touched his cheek as he stepped back, and Arthur looked up to see Merlin staring down at him, his eyes wide, afraid -- and brilliantly, wonderfully blue.

"A . . . Arthur?" Merlin stammered, voice hoarse.

"Merlin!" Arthur breathed, catching his shoulders. "Do you recognize me?"

Merlin bit his lip, staring down at his neckerchief then up at Arthur, and then back again. Tentatively, he reached to touch the blood-stained fabric. His hand was shaking. Tears rose in his eyes, shocking Arthur, who pulled him closer for a moment, pressing their foreheads together.

"It's okay," Arthur soothed, stroking Merlin's back. "Merlin, it's okay. I found you. You're okay."

"You're alive," Merlin choked, his hands rising to rest between Arthur's shoulder blades. "There was so much blood. But you . . . you're alive."

"Thanks to you." Arthur's voice broke, and he drew in a ragged breath, holding Merlin closer. "You saved me. You saved everyone on that battlefield."

"Arthur," Merlin said, voice suddenly urgent. He pulled away, blinking down at Arthur through suddenly serious eyes. "I never told you, but Arthur, I'm . . ." His voice broke, and he swallowed a sob, gripping Arthur's arm tight enough to hurt. "I'm sorry. Arthur, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay." Arthur said. "I know."

Arthur pressed his lips to Merlin's forehead, breathing in the musky, wild scent of him. Merlin's arms closed around his shoulders, holding him close. For a long moment, they held each other, Merlin's hair soft against Arthur's lips. Merlin nuzzled Arthur's neck, beard tickling, and Arthur blinked back tears, gripping the back of Merlin's head with sudden ferocity. The soft brush of Merlin's fingers on his cheeks calmed him. Arthur drew back slightly, easing his grip, as Merlin cupped his face in his hands, gently wiping the moisture from his eyes.

"Arthur," Merlin breathed, voice husky. His eyes flickered to Arthur's mouth, and tongue darted out to lick his lips. Arthur's heart pounded. The air between them felt charged, now, with something more primal and ancient than magic. Cautiously, they both leaned in closer -- then a branch cracked nearby, and Merlin froze.

Slipping from Arthur's grip, he dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to the leaf-covered ground. Gold swept over his blue eyes like clouds rolling across the sky, and Arthur felt his heart go leaden.

"No," he breathed, stumbling towards Merlin.

"Sire?" Ector called.

Quick as a deer, Merlin bolted into the forest. Arthur caught one last glimpse of gold eyes glittering at him from the shadows, and then he was gone.

"Damn you!" Arthur swore as Ector strode into view.

"Sire?" Ector asked.

Arthur glared. "I almost had him," he snapped. "Why can't you just let me alone for five minutes?" Ignoring the older man's sputtering protests, Arthur stalked back to camp, his expression so murderous that even Gwen didn't dare to talk to him. That night, he lay awake in his bedroll, hoping that Merlin would come by again.

He didn't.


	6. Chapter 6

Needing to preserve their energy for the long, cold months ahead, the trees were busy shedding their leaves. _Drop_, said the sap running through their trunks. _Drop and rejoin the earth._ On the branches, amongst the falling leaves, a murder of crows slept, bodies weary from a long day of flight. Tomorrow, they would wake with the sun and continue their journey south. Their dreams were of wind and the steady push of wings. Snug in the warm, dry cave she shared with her cubs, the mother brown bear thought of salmon, and berries, of warm, fresh meat. A warm layer of fat now blanketed the cubs beneath their glossy fur, but it wasn't enough. They'd need more to wake up on the other side of the long, cold sleep that was coming. In the thicket, a doe slept fitfully, her speckled fawn nestled into her side for warmth. She knew that the wolf pack was hunting on the other side of the forest, and stayed small and hidden in the trees, hoping the wind wouldn't carry them her scent. In the distance, a rabbit screamed as an owl caught her in his sharp talons.

The wild man of the woods listened to it all, the song of life around him, but for the first time since summer had wooed and won him for the forest, he felt himself strangely apart from it. There was something he was forgetting. Something he needed to know. It had to do, he thought, with the golden-haired man who'd given him the neck cloth.

Curled beneath the thorny branches of a rosebush, and sharing his body's warmth with the red fox and the three hunting hounds Ector had brought into the forest, the wild man played with bloodstained cloth around his neck.

What was he supposed to remember?

He scowled up at the moon in the sky, tapping his heel impatiently on the dirt. The bitch hound curled closest whined in protest. Her sister, dreaming of chasing squirrels, made a low, growling sound in her throat. He listened to the plants and animals around him, wove his magic into the roots spreading underfoot and the branches curving overhead.

But deep within the wild man, practically buried beneath the voices of the plants and the animals, of the earth, and the sky, and the sea and the stars, a new voice was speaking, and he recognized it, dimly, as his own.

_Remember,_ Merlin was telling him. _Remember._ And, like a bubble rising to the top of a pond, a memory surfaced in the wild man's mind: a little wooden dragon, clasped in the golden man's hands. The dragon! He'd given it to the golden man; it had seemed important at the time. But no . . . there was something else. For a moment, his confusion dulled the song of the world around him. Just for a moment, but it was enough. Where he'd slept, so long, inside him, the boy he'd once been was rising, he was gathering his strength -- and with all of the power of the changing season, with the heady blood of the beast inside him, kin to his winged and diminished cousins, with his father's power coiling in his stomach and the wild magic flowing into him like water, Merlin formed a single, concentrated, thought:__

_KILGHARRAH._

On the other side of the world, the last remaining dragon woke at the power of that thought. He wanted to ignore it, to roll over and go back to sleep, to leave Merlin to whatever trouble he'd found for himself. Had Balinor called him from such a distance, he could have. But the dragon-lord's call, combined with the power of the earth itself, couldn't be ignored. It clanged against his senses, grated against his scales, surrounded him like a net until despite himself, he answered it.

_What is it, Merlin?_ he asked, a hint of annoyance souring his words. _Have you already got yourself into trouble that you can't resolve without my help?_

_You owe me a favour,_ Merlin reminded him, and the dragon bristled. He'd known that Merlin would be back to collect it one day. He just hadn't known that it would be so soon. _One favour,_ he agreed. _And then the debt between us is settled._

Merlin's acknowledgement didn't come in words, exactly, but it rolled around the dragon like the morning sun. A favour called for a debt owed, and then the scales between them would be balanced once more.

Mollified, the dragon asked, _What is it that you need?_

_You used to speak of destiny,_ Merlin said. _Was that a lie?_

_I have never _lied_, young wizard._ Only omitted certain truths.

_Then show it to me,_ Merlin said. _I need to see the future._

Of all the possibilities the dragon had expected, this one hadn't even made the list. A loud, bitter chuckle rolled out of him, dry as the sand on which he slept.

_Gladly,_ Kilgharrah growled, and drawing on a magic he hadn't needed to use for centuries, he fed the vision into Merlin's mind. Through the open link, he heard Merlin's cry a moment later, a hoarse, pained sound made of horror and surprise. Merlin was strong, but his defences were down; he'd opened himself to this, to Kilgharrah. It didn't take much to settle the vision over Merlin, like a net made up of possibilities. Not when Merlin didn't even know enough to fight him.

The corners of the dragon's mouth curled up in satisfaction, and he stretched back out in the sand. Merlin had asked to see the future; from here on out, he would see nothing else.

_Now,_ he said to Merlin, _we are even._

A blood-curdling sound halfway between a scream and a laugh woke them in the middle of the night. Reaching for his sword, Geraint clambered to his feet. Around the fire, the others, too, were climbing out of their bedrolls, sleepy-eyed and confused. For a moment, the woods were silent, save for the constant rustle of wind through the trees. The waxing crescent moon glowed faintly overhead. Had they imagined it? they all wondered.

"Did you hear --" Breunor started, and Arthur shushed him.

Then the sound came again.

"It's Merlin!' Arthur cried, worry evident in his face. Pausing only long enough to belt his sword around his hips, he took off into the forest at a dead run. Lancelot followed, with Gwen close at his heels. Cursing his aging limbs, Ector strapped on his own sword, and took off after, not as quickly as he'd have liked. Geraint and Breunor shared an unhappy glance and took up the rear.

Running through a forest was always difficult, and especially so at night. They tripped over roots, skinning their knees and palms, and tangled their clothing in thorns and branches. Geraint wondered if this would end as every other expedition into the forest had, with the six of them stumbling back into camp after walking in circles.

Yet Arthur moved as though an inner light were guiding him. Pausing every now and then to close his eyes and listen, he'd nod to himself and take off again, the others following. Huffing along behind him, Ector watched him with worried eyes. Surely _this_ had to be enchantment! Ector felt sick at the thought of explaining to the king that he'd failed him, and resolved to save Arthur, whatever the cost.

As they drew deeper into the heart of the forest, the light grew brighter. The change came so gradually that they barely noticed it at first. The woods around them grew brighter, though, and brighter, until they could clearly see the forest floor beneath their feet. Above, the sky was still dark with night. But a golden glow, bright as noon, came through the branches ahead of them, and they moved towards it warily.

The sound came again, louder now, raising the hairs on the backs of their necks.

Stepping through the trees and into the glowing grove, Arthur saw Merlin standing with his back arched and his arms spread wide behind him, as though an invisible hook were lifting his chest and he struggled for balance. The air glowed almost blindingly around him. As they entered the glade, his head whipped to face them, then his entire body stiffened, as though it burned from the inside. He threw back his head, and screamed again.

"Merlin!" Arthur cried, and started toward him.

"No, sire!" Ector yelled.

Even Gwen said, "Arthur, I don't think --"

"He won't hurt me," Arthur said, and stepping forward, clasped Merlin's shoulder.

The light blazed around them both. Ector drew his sword and, behind him, Geraint and Breunor drew theirs. They could hardly see Arthur now, the glow was so bright. He might have stood in the middle of the sun. Through the blinding glare, they could barely make out their prince's strong form, his hands on Merlin's shoulders. Merlin was straightening beneath their touch, his heels settling on the ground and his hands rising to rest on Arthur's forearms. He was speaking now, the words to a spell, gripping Arthur's sleeves as only they anchored him to the earth. At the sound of his voice, Ector started forward, but Geraint caught his arm.

"If you kill him, what happens to Arthur?"

Ector wanted to argue, but fell silent as the light in the glade receded, until the only golden glow came from Merlin's blinking eyes. Gripping Arthur's arms, Merlin stared at him, as though seeing him for the first time. Merlin opened his mouth, but no sound escaped it. He shook his head, looking haunted, drawn and pale. Then he dropped to one knee, and caught Arthur's hand in both of his. Ector tensed, readying for action, but Merlin only pulled the hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to Arthur's silver ring.

"My king," Merlin whispered, reverent. His golden eyes were rapt. He wore a look of concentration on his face, as if wanting to memorize every detail of Arthur.

Arthur stared down at him, flummoxed, then -- ignoring the knights drawing in around them, ignoring even Lancelot and Gwen -- fell to his knees beside Merlin, resting his other hand atop the two that gripped his fist so tightly. "What is it?" he murmured, too low for the others to hear. "Are you hurt?"

"I see," Merlin said, his voice hollow, lost. He clung to their joined hands as if Arthur were the one stable point in a sea of dizziness. "I see it all now."

Arthur felt the others watching him, their gazes hot on his skin. But that was secondary compared to the lost look on Merlin's face, to the sadness in Merlin's voice and the desperate grip of Merlin's hands on his fingers.

"What?" he asked again. "What do you see?"

"Everything," Merlin whispered, voice breaking.

Then Ector's hands were on his shoulders, pulling him backwards, away from Arthur. Fury flashed in Arthur's eyes. Rising to his feet in one quick motion, he broke the knight's hold on Merlin, and squared off to face him. Geraint and Breunor closed in on them in a flash, Geraint gripping Ector's arm, and Breunor, Arthur's.

"Easy," they were saying, and "Easy, sire."

From the corner of his eye, Arthur saw Merlin gathering himself from the ground where he'd fallen when Ector released him so suddenly. Lancelot and Gwen had moved closer to him. Lancelot offered him a hand up, and he took it, staring at him, at both of them, with the same, startled recognition he'd shown Arthur.

"Let me go," Arthur said, with barely controlled anger in his voice. Breunor released him immediately. A second later, Geraint eased his hold on Ector. Arthur held the oldest knight's eyes for a long, hard moment. "You will not interfere again," he said, his voice firm with command.

"But, sire!" Ector began to protest.

To Geraint and Breunor, he said, "If he steps in again when I am not in obvious danger, stop him."

Ector stared at Arthur, and then at the two of them, betrayed.

"Yes, sire," Breunor said at once, unable to bring himself to look at Ector.

A second later, Geraint, too, nodded his assent. "Yes, sire."

Holding Ector's gaze a moment longer, Arthur turned and started back to Merlin, in time to see him duck his head to Gwen and say, quietly, "You've always been kind, your majesty."

Flustered, Gwen lifted her hands, saying, "Merlin, no, I'm not -- I'm just -- I'm your friend. Guinevere?"

Over her shoulder, Lancelot caught Arthur's eye, and moved to stand next to him. "He's crazy," he said, under his breath. "He thinks we're other people."

Arthur froze in his tracks, watching them. The knights drew around him in a loose half-circle. Now that the light had faded, they all noticed the scrap of blue fabric around Merlin's neck. Never had it looked more out of place than now, the blue linen stained nearly brown with dried blood, and ragged, the frayed edges bright against his sun-freckled skin.

"Where did he get that?" Geraint asked loudly.

Gwen glanced, wide-eyed, towards Arthur. Picking up on it, Ector glanced suspiciously between the two of them, an accusation forming on his face. Even Merlin had looked up, recognizing the tension in the air between them.

"I tried to lure him out with it last night," Arthur said, holding his chin high. "I nearly had him before you came blundering in," he added, fixing Ector with a baleful glare.

Ector drew himself up to protest, but it was Merlin who spoke. "You have me now," he said, sounding tired. He shook his head to clear it, and took a hesitant step towards Arthur, moving slowly, as though the ground were shifting beneath his feet. "I will not willingly leave your side again."

"You won't?" Arthur asked, staring at him.

A choked smile twitched at Merlin's lips. In his mind, Arthur was dying, bleeding alone on a battlefield. "Never again, until I must," Merlin whispered, his voice hollow and distant. Arthur stared at him, bewildered by his sudden seriousness.

Ector spoke. "You will return to Camelot, then, and face your crimes?"

"It would be better for you if I didn't," Merlin said, something dark in his voice. "But if Arthur wishes to return to Camelot, I will follow him."

It all felt too easy, Geraint thought, watching Arthur lead the way back to the campsite, Merlin sticking close by his side. Geraint had expected to battle Merlin, to match their steel to his magic and come out victorious after a ferocious fight. That Merlin should surrender like this, voluntarily, felt strange. Wrong. Breunor thought so, too -- he could tell by the other knight's narrowed eyes.

Yet Merlin stumbled along beside Arthur with no signs of resistance. As they walked, he kept up a running commentary: "That tree will burn next spring," he mumbled, to nobody in particular, pointing to a large hazel. "Lightning will hit it. A family of squirrels lives in its branches. They'll all die. The fox kits will eat them, though, and they'll grow stronger." And other things, even more nonsensical, like, "When they build the . . . the road . . . the big road," he waved his hands, spreading them wide to indicate just _how_ big, "right here, going over this hill, the man inside the metal beast will pass out; his heart will stop, and the beast's claw will open up and drop a steel beam as tall as two men, and twice as wide, and someone will be standing under it; he'll jump out of the way, but not fast enough. It will crush his legs, and he'll spend the rest of his life in a . . . chair. A chair with wheels. But he'll be happy; he has a daughter named Emily, and she . . ."

Geraint shook his head, trying to block out the flow of Merlin's words. He made a face at Breunor, who pantomimed covering his ears. Ector, beside him, walked with his sword drawn and his eyes narrowed into slits. When they reached the campsite, Ector gathered the rope from his pack and glared at Merlin. "Hands behind your back!" he barked.

Arthur sighed. "Ector, that's not necessary. We don't need to tie him. He won't run. Will you, Merlin?" He said that louder, breaking through Merlin's steady commentary about the snow storm that would come next month -- or was it next year? -- and how the smallest fawn would freeze to death if the wolves didn't eat him first. But Merlin fell silent at Arthur's words, and looked up at him, blinking his golden eyes. "You won't run?" Arthur prompted again.

"No," Merlin said, agreeably. "There's no point. I'm meant to go back with you. But Arthur -- Arthur, there will be a famine three years from now; you must make sure the villagers stockpile their food. Ration it. You'll have to ration it."

"I will," Arthur promised, resting a hand on his shoulder. He glanced helplessly at Gwen, who frowned, and came to sit beside Merlin, offering him some tea.

"Thank you, your majesty," Merlin said, accepting the mug with a little bow. "You look younger and more beautiful than ever today."

Gwen rose abruptly, but not before Arthur saw her face crumple. Leaving Merlin to a long monologue about the metal bird he swore was flying overhead, Arthur followed Gwen back to the fire. She was moving furiously, trying to channel her emotions into the quick motion of her hand opening the jar of grain and pouring a good part of it into the boiling water, in the hard, furious movements of her hand on the wooden spoon. Arthur had done the same thing himself, many times, when drilling the knights or hunting wild beats. He hadn't known that making porridge could be a battle, as well.

"Guinevere," Arthur said, when she gave no signs of acknowledging his presence behind her. She gasped, whirling around, and a glob of porridge flew from the wooden spoon, hitting him square in the chest.

"Sorry!" she gasped, dabbing at it. "I'm so sorry. It's just . . . you scared me, and --" she was flustered, speaking furiously, her voice close to tears.

"It's all right," Arthur interrupted, pulling her into his arms. From the corner of his eye, he saw Lancelot stiffen, then look away. Geraint and Breunor elbowed each other. Gwen resisted for a moment, then sighed, and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I just hate to see him like this!" she said, her voice breaking a little. "I don't recognize him. He's like a completely different person."

"I know," Arthur murmured, too low for the others to hear. "I hate it, too." He pulled away, conscious of everyone's eyes on them. "You have a leaf in your hair," he said, trying to make things easier, less serious. Gwen lifted her hand, but she couldn't find it, so Arthur pulled it free of her bun, smiling at her.

High, nervous laughter sounded from behind them, and they turned to find Merlin chuckling. Arthur drew away from Gwen, feeling unaccountably guilty. "What's so funny?" he asked, to hide his confusion.

"It's an oak leaf," Merlin explained, chortling at some secret joke. "She kissed Lancelot under that very same tree!"

Gwen gasped, embarrassment, betrayal, and anger rising in her cheeks. "That's not true!" she protested. Looking up at Arthur, she said, "It isn't!"

At the same time, Lancelot rose, full of indignation. Had Merlin been sane, he would have tossed his gauntlet before him. "That's a lie!" Lancelot said. "You can insult my honour, and I will endure it, because you are clearly not yourself. But I will not sit by and let you slander Guinevere."

Merlin looked between the two of them, frowning. He blinked, and for a moment, Arthur thought he saw a glimmer of blue in his eyes. But when he lifted his lashes, they were gold.

"Perhaps it hasn't happened yet," Merlin offered. "Maybe it happened tomorrow. Or next month. Don't cry, your majesty!" he said, seeing Gwen's eyes fill with tears. "The tree saw it, no one else. It knows no better than to share your secrets with me."

"Why do you keep calling her that?" Arthur asked. Merlin turned to stare at him, as though he were an idiot.

"That's how you address a queen in Camelot," Merlin said slowly.

Gwen blushed, and the knights laughed, elbowing each other. Arthur crossed his arms. "Guinevere is not queen."

Merlin frowned, glancing from her to Arthur, and back again. He glanced upwards, as though sorting through a problem in his mind. Finally, he allowed, "Well, not yet. But that's only because you're not yet king, my liege."

"Gwen will be my queen?" Arthur asked. He spoke the words like they were a joke to which he hadn't quite figured out the punch line. When Merlin nodded, Arthur sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I suppose Lancelot will be my bloody first knight," he said.

"Of course," Merlin agreed.

"This is ridiculous!" Ector said. "Sire, I can't sit by and listen to this nonsense."

"Come on, it's harmless enough," said Breunor. "He's obviously crazy." To Merlin, he asked, "What about me? What's my future?"

Merlin studied him for a moment. "You'll never fit into your father's armour," he said at last. "But in time, you'll commission your own. It will surpass his in every way. And your wife likes you better in it. She always thought you looked ridiculous in your father's."

"That's because he does look ridiculous," Geraint offered.

Breunor reached back to smack him, without taking his eyes off Merlin. "I'll have a wife?" he asked, eagerly. "What's her name?"

"Maledisant," Merlin said at once.

"Is she pretty?" Geraint broke in. "Does she have . . ." and he held his hands in front of his chest in a way that made Gwen blush, and Breunor turn around to shove him.

"Watch it!" he said. "That's my future wife you're talking about!"

"She does," Merlin said, a small smile playing about his lips. Breunor released the headlock in which he'd captured Geraint and whooped with laughter, clapping him on the back. "She's got a vile temper, though. Just after breakfast last week, she threw a plate of eggs at your head."

Geraint and Breunor broke into guffaws, and despite himself, Arthur felt a smile breaking across his own features. Even Gwen and Lancelot were watching now, amused. Only Ector stood back, huffing and scowling.

"You shouldn't be humouring him," Ector complained.

"What's the harm?" Arthur said. "It's not like we actually believe it. Like Breunor said, he's crazy."

Merlin's smile softened, became more genuine as he looked at Arthur. "You have often said so, my king," he said, giving a little bow. It should have looked ridiculous, such a courteous gesture coming from a near-naked man with leaves in his hair. Instead, it looked stately, somehow, one great man acknowledging another. Yet, there was intimacy in it as well, in the timbre of Merlin's voice and the softness in his eerie golden eyes. They all recognized it, and the glances thrown in their direction became speculative. Gwen's eyes widened suddenly, then narrowed.

Trying to lighten the mood, Geraint said, "All right, it's my turn. Will I have a wife even prettier than Breunor's, or will I have to show poor Maledisant what a real man's like when he's not home? Ow!" he cried, for Breunor had thumped him over the head.

Merlin shook his head, sadly. "You will never marry, Geraint, son of Lac."

Geraint's face fell, and Breunor laughed, pointing at him. "Tell me I'll at least be rich then," Geraint said. "What will happen to me when we get back to Camelot?"

Merlin blinked at him. "You won't."

"What do you mean?" Geraint asked, something cold and suspicious slicing through his gut.

"You'll never make it back to Camelot," Merlin said, a private smile lingering on his face. "You'll die in this very forest."

"That's not funny!" Geraint said, a note of panic in his voice.

"No," Merlin agreed.

The others had stopped smiling now. They all found themselves watching Geraint with bated breath, as though he might keel over at any second. Only Merlin kept grinning, like a maniac.

Geraint saw red. Part of him wanted to step forward and beat the cheer out of Merlin's face, get revenge on him for telling stupid lies. The other part wanted to listen, to learn as much as possible, and that was the part to win out. "How will it happen?" he asked.

"You'll die in a tree," Merlin said cheerfully.

Geraint stared at him, too dumbfounded to respond. "A tree?" he repeated, trying to work out how that was even possible.

"Maybe it's some kind of metaphor," Breunor offered. "Trees are wood. That could mean you'll get hit by a spear or something."

"But that's killed _by_ a tree," Geraint pointed out, still trying to figure out whether or not Merlin was making some sort of sick joke. "Not in one."

"I've heard of magical spirits that make their homes in trees," Lancelot said thoughtfully. "Perhaps you'll cross one of them."

Arthur was staring at them, bemused. "I don't know why you three are taking this seriously," he said. "Merlin has never been able to tell the future before. Not that I knew, anyway."

"What do you know of his magic, sire?" Ector asked, and again, his voice was faintly accusatory.

Arthur held his gaze steadily. "Only what I saw on the battlefield," he said. "And what I've pieced together since then. I don't believe he's ever seen the future. Have you?" he asked, aiming his words to Merlin.

"No," Merlin agreed. "Not without the crystal, and that just showed me the dragon."

They all stared at him. Merlin smiled back, looking almost the idiot Arthur used to accuse him of being.

"What do you know about the dragon?" Ector growled.

Merlin blinked, opening and closing his mouth. "It's his fault I'm like this now," he said at last. "Or maybe it's mine. I suppose he did what I asked." He frowned for a moment, looking lost and alone. Arthur stared at him, unsure what to say or do. Then a robin landed on a nearby tree limb, and a luminescent smile broke across Merlin's face. Greeting the robin in its own language like an old friend, he scrambled up the trunk to sit beside it, all the while conversing in a series of friendly chirps.

A hand settled over Arthur's shoulder, and he turned to see Lancelot standing beside him. "I'm sorry, sire," he said quietly, leaning close so the others couldn't hear. "It's a pity that he's finally speaking, only to be like this."

Arthur swallowed, feeling almost sick. Gwen appeared at his side, a steaming bowl in her hands. "Porridge?" she offered.

After breakfast, they started to pack. Arthur and Ector set themselves to saddling the horses, while Gwen and Lancelot banked the fire and washed the breakfast dishes, and Breunor and Geraint busied themselves rolling up bedding.

"I never want to see this place again in my life," Geraint said as he rolled his bedding into a neat cylinder, and strapped it onto his travelling pack. "I can't wait to get back into my own bed, and eat something from the castle kitchens."

"It could have been worse," Breunor said, moving onto Ector's bedroll. "At least Gwen was with us. She can cook. Remember our last hunting trip?"

Geraint groaned, clutching his stomach. "Don't remind me! I am never again letting you near a venison steak as long as I live. I'd die if I had to live off your cooking."

From the tree where he sat, still conversing with the robin, Merlin looked down at him. "Don't worry," he said. "You won't!"

"That's right!" Breunor said. "You're supposed to die on the way back to Camelot. How was it -- chasing a tree nymph?" he asked, looking up at Merlin for confirmation.

Merlin's golden eyes were focussed upward, at nothing in particular, as far as anyone could tell, and his brow was furrowed in concentration. "No . . . " he said. "He shan't die at the hands of a tree nymph." Then he gave his head a quick, sharp shake, as though to clear it, and flashed Geraint a wide and dimpled smile. "You'll drown instead," he said, and scampered higher into the tree.

"Oi!" Geraint yelled after him. "That wasn't funny, you hear?" An edge of unease lurked beneath the anger in his voice, and Breunor rose to his feet, resting a hand on Geraint's arm.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Breunor tried to reassure him. "He's insane."

"My cousin drowned," Geraint said hollowly. "He fell into the river one spring. The current was too quick for him. We couldn't even find his body. He got tangled up in some weeds at the bottom. When it finally washed up, four months later, he . . ." Geraint shuddered, and Breunor squeezed his shoulder.

"Don't listen to him," Lancelot said. "Earlier, he said you'd die in a tree. Now it's drowning. He's insane -- that's all there is to it."

"The sorcerer lies," Ector said firmly. "They all lie."

"Besides," Arthur drawled from where he was checking his stallion's tack, "you're a knight of Camelot. When you die, it will be in battle."

Gwen stared at Arthur, scandalized by his version of a pep talk. But Geraint was nodding, a bit of colour coming back into his face. "That's right," he said, almost to himself. "I'll probably die fighting some big, slimy beast." Forcing a smile, he moved to roll Arthur's bedroll, and Arthur, remembering the book hidden in his bag, stood abruptly.

"I've got it," he said, patting Geraint on the shoulder. "Go help Ector water the horses."

They left the apple glade at noon, with Merlin sitting behind Arthur in the saddle, his hands resting gently on Arthur's waist. Arthur began to head north, but Merlin caught his arm and pointed east instead.

"This isn't the way we came in!" Geraint protested, as Arthur took the path Merlin indicated.

"There are many ways into this forest," Merlin said quietly, "but only one way out."

"How do we know we won't just walk in circles?" Breunor asked as he climbed aboard his horse.

Merlin shot him an arch look. "Because this time, I'm letting you leave." He lifted his head and closed his eyes, speaking the magic words to release the concealment spell he'd placed on the apple grove.

[Miles away, in a castle by the sea, the clear water in Morgause's scrying pool flashed golden, alerting her that Merlin's concealment spell had been dropped.]


	7. Chapter 7

They made little progress, that first day of their journey back. Although they no longer walked in circles, the path Merlin chose for them was narrow, crowded thick with trees and hanging vines. The horses moved slowly, picking their way over roots, while their riders ducked beneath the branches overhead. When Arthur finally bid them stop at sunset, the end of the forest was still nowhere in sight. Breunor climbed a tree, and looked out at the sweeping forest with a grim expression.

"I don't like this," Breunor said. "It only took us one day of riding to find the apple glade. It will take days for us to break through the forest at this rate."

"It's a trick, sire," Ector agreed. Lowering his voice, he said, "It is honourable for you to want to bring him back to Camelot for a trial. But you already know his sentence. We should kill him. Here."

"No," Arthur said. Ector started to protest, and he held him off, glaring. "Absolutely not. I'll hear no more about it." Standing, he walked away from the knights, but the conversation he found with Lancelot and Guinevere was little better. They'd been speaking to each other in hushed voices, but drew quiet as Arthur approached.

"Sire," Lancelot said without preamble. "We have an idea."

Gwen nodded, glancing sideways at the knights. Speaking quietly, so they couldn't hear, she said, "We can't take Merlin back to Camelot. You know that. The king will have him killed."

Arthur closed his eyes, resting his head on his hands. "I know," he admitted.

"I owe Merlin my life," Lancelot said. "I will look after him. Tomorrow, before we leave the forest, I can sneak away from the camp with him. We'll find a village outside of Camelot, settle there. Perhaps I can find a way to cure his madness."

"I'll help," Gwen said, then bit her lip, looking at Arthur. He couldn't meet her eyes as he patted her hand.

"It's a good idea," he said. "You both care for him. I know he'll be safe with you." But his voice was hollow as he spoke. Empty.

"You don't sound sure," Lancelot said, watching Arthur shrewdly.

Arthur swallowed. "It would be best for Merlin," he said, ignoring the sadness twisting in his gut.

Gwen smiled at him. "It wouldn't be forever, Arthur. We'll come back to Camelot when you're king."

"Give me some time to think about it," Arthur said. "I need some time to myself." Rising, he stepped into the trees.

Meanwhile, Ector, Breunor and Geraint were having their own whispered conversation.

"Can't you see?" Ector hissed. "The prince is bewitched! He follows the warlock's directions even when they're patently untrue. We'll never make it back to Camelot. The warlock is leading us to our deaths."

"Arthur's not enchanted," Breunor protested.

But Geraint was shaking his head, thoughtfully. "You didn't know him before Merlin came along, Breunor," he said slowly. "Arthur was a completely different person then."

"You see!" Ector said to Breunor, gesturing towards Geraint. "Even his own cousin agrees with me!"

"I am not turning on Arthur without proof," Breunor said, crossing his arms.

Ector gazed across the campsite. Merlin had flopped onto his stomach at the end of the clearing they'd settled in, and was conversing quite animatedly with a pair of rabbits. Gwen and Lancelot sat together. Arthur had moved into the trees. "Have you noticed that he never lets anybody look inside his bag?" Ector asked. "It's time to see what he's been hiding there."

Deep in the woods, away from the campsite, Arthur sat beneath a hazelnut tree with his knees drawn up to his chest. The awkward angle dug the wooden dragon's tail into his stomach, so he pulled it from his pocket, turning it around in his hands. He was thinking of the forest and the villages around it, dozens of villages where Gwen and Lancelot could settle with Merlin. Gwen and Lancelot could be a married couple. Merlin, Lancelot's brother, perhaps, or an insane cousin. Either way, he would be safe away from Arthur's father. Away from Arthur. Swallowing the lump that rose in his throat, Arthur gripped the dragon until it hurt. It was a good plan. It would keep Merlin safe. But to search so long for Merlin, only to lose him again . . . his heart ached at the thought.

A warm presence dropped to sit on the grass beside him, mirroring Arthur's pose. Arthur looked up, not surprised to see Merlin studying him with intense golden eyes. He realized that he'd been waiting for Merlin to find him. "You're troubled, my liege," Merlin breathed, leaning in close.

"Gwen and Lancelot want to take you to one of the neighbouring kingdoms," Arthur said softly, not meeting his eyes. "Perhaps they're right. You would be safer there. You'd be --"

"I will not leave you, your majesty."

Arthur glared at him. "Stop calling me that!"

"But you're my king," Merlin protested. "My destiny is to serve you."

"I'm your friend," Arthur said. "And I need to do what's best for you. You'll be safest with Lancelot and Guinevere."

Merlin opened his mouth to protest, but Arthur laid a hand on his arm. "It's not permanent," he said. "Just for awhile. Until my fa—until I am king. Please, Merlin. Will you do this for me?" For a moment, Merlin almost looked his old self, so stubborn was his glare. At last, he sighed and inclined his head. It was close enough to assent for Arthur. Relief flooded him, and he smiled despite his leaden heart. "They'll sneak away with you tomorrow," he said. "Can the knights and I leave the forest without you there?"

"I . . . I'll send a stag to lead you," he murmured, not looking at Arthur. Moisture glittered beneath his eyelashes, and Arthur's heart ached at the sight of it. He touched a hand to Merlin's shoulder (the skin was warm beneath his fingers), and Merlin leaned into the touch. Arthur wrapped an arm around his waist, tucking Merlin up against his side. He was trembling, slightly, so Arthur wrapped his cloak around him. As he did, Merlin looked up at him. His eyes were watery and blue.

Arthur's arm tightened around him in pleased surprise. "Merlin?" Merlin shook his head, refusing to speak. "Come on. Talk to me."

A muscle jumped in Merlin's cheek, and he swallowed. He looked at the ground, and then up at Arthur. He bit his bottom lip, eyes thoughtful, as though he were considering words. The tears were openly sliding down his face now. Then he smiled bitterly, leaned closer to Arthur, and kissed him.

For one stunned moment, Arthur froze beneath the touch, gentle as it was. Then he was leaning forward, too eagerly, teeth clacking against Merlin's and their knees knocking together. Arthur's fingers tangled in Merlin's long hair, and Merlin gripped Arthur's arms, squeezing his muscles through the fine wool of his sleeves.

Their lips clung, then parted. Merlin pulled back, glancing up at Arthur with wide, blue eyes. Arthur leaned in for another kiss, capturing Merlin's bottom lip between his own. It felt sweetly surreal to cradle Merlin in his arms. Never breaking the lush, gentle movements of their mouths, they peppered tiny kisses across each other's lips between the long, sweet moments of exploration, opening each to each -- "Arthur" Merlin whispered and "_Arthur_" -- as Arthur tipped him back onto the mossy ground, delving into Merlin's mouth as if it held all the secrets he never dreamed he'd find.

Through the ground beneath them, the pulse of the earth beat slowly, but loud enough that even Arthur heard it. The steady rhythm of it throbbed in Merlin's throat when Arthur pressed his mouth there, licking and biting at the fragile skin. The living presence of the earth calmed them both, giving them courage they might have lacked after so long apart, so many false beginnings and ends. (Arthur's arms were still wrapped around Merlin; he trailed his palms down the knobs of Merlin's spine to settle at the small of his back, the tips of Arthur's little fingers just resting on the swell of Merlin's rear.)

Every caress, every kiss, fed the wild magic, and it pooled low and hot in Merlin's abdomen, sang through every vein in his body. A hawk flew by overhead, and for a moment, Merlin glimpsed themselves through its eyes: Arthur's strong and muscled back poised over Merlin, held in place by Arthur's elbows on the ground; Arthur's golden head bent over Merlin's neck; and how Merlin, beneath him, arched his back, tilting his hips to give Arthur's hands more room as they roamed over Merlin's body. And still they faltered (Arthur's fingers slipped low, skimmed over the fuzzy cleft of Merlin's arse, then poised there, hesitant, even while Merlin spread his thighs in wanton invitation), until finally Merlin caught Arthur's hand in his own, guiding Arthur's fingers up to his mouth.

He sucked two in with a contented purr, flicking his tongue against the pads of Arthur's fingertips and lapping down the digits, licking at the sensitive webbing between them and tonguing at Arthur's sword calluses. Arthur's eyes were dark and hungry (Merlin guided the hand back down); he exhaled sharply (the ring of muscles resisted the intrusion of Arthur's fingers, then surrendered as Merlin fucked down on Arthur's hand); tenderly he soothed his free hand down Merlin's flank (Merlin fumbled for his own cock, squeezing it hard at the base, then tugging upwards, slowly, milking the pleasure from his body). And it felt, for a moment, they thought, Arthur's fingers curling up to find the spot that made Merlin's eyes flutter shut and his mouth go slack with pleasure, as though they might hover there indefinitely, lost forever in this moment. Arthur's fingers, Merlin's body, desire arching between them.

Then Merlin whispered, "more," and his eyes fluttered open. They were gold again, and Arthur's heart sank, even as his aching cock twitched when Merlin reached inside his breeches to palm it. The breeches drifted down Arthur's hips of their own accord, and Merlin followed them. His breath gusted over Arthur's cock.

"Shit!" Arthur gasped, as Merlin's lips closed over the head. He sucked slowly, messily, gripping the base of Arthur's cock with one long-fingered hand while his mouth strained over the head. Drawing back, he drew the flat of his tongue up the thick vein before plunging back down the length of it, swallowing Arthur almost whole. The hand that had been gripping the base of Arthur's cock slid down to cup his balls (one finger slipped behind them, and Arthur tensed, but Merlin only teased the smooth spot behind Arthur's balls with his middle finger, flicking his fingernail against the sensitive skin while he rolled the tender weight of Arthur's balls in his palm). A thin line of saliva clung to Merlin's swollen lips as he pulled away and the head of Arthur's cock slipped free from his mouth with an obscene pop. His hands caught Arthur's shoulders; he pressed him down; and then Merlin was straddling his hips, reaching between them to guide Arthur's cock inside.

A high, broken keen escaped Merlin as he sheathed Arthur inside his body; the sound sent goose bumps up Arthur's arms, even as he bucked up curiously into Merlin's tight heat. Their gasps and sighs breaking in measure as their hips rolled sounded to them as natural and inevitable as the roar of the distant tide; Arthur smoothed his hands up Merlin's chest to find the hard pebbles of his nipples; Merlin arched over him, sweat beading salty at his temples, and Arthur's teeth caught the smooth skin of his neck. They rolled, and arched, and crashed together until liquid heat uncoiled in Arthur's belly and he came, gasping. Merlin rode him through his orgasm, stripping furiously at his own cock until he spilled, gasping, over Arthur's belly and chest. Collapsing forward onto Arthur, Merlin went still.

Arthur closed his eyes, breathing in the mingled scents of sex and moss and rich, dark loam. Merlin rolled off of Arthur's body, and they both winced a bit as Arthur's cock sprang free. Merlin lay on the grass beside Arthur, watching him with golden eyes.

A chill went through Arthur at the sight. "Merlin?" he murmured, suddenly uncomfortable. Merlin gave him a smile that was a little too sharp, all dimples, and bright teeth, and pointed chin. Arthur's heart twisted a little at the sight. Magic hummed beneath the surface of Merlin's skin. Arthur imagined he could see it crackling in the air around him.

"Look," Merlin said conversationally. He pointed at the forest floor, where their seed had spilled. A fragile sprout was wriggling up from beneath the carpet of fallen leaves, shining, as though dipped in dew. It snaked across the forest floor until it hit the root of a mighty elm, and then, slowly, it began to climb it. Leaves curled delicately as they watched, and tiny, scarlet buds unfolded, ignoring the autumn chill in the air.

"That's . . ." Arthur couldn't decide on amazing or creepy, so he let his mouth fall closed instead.

Merlin yawned. "The forest knows that you are king," it said. "It will honour your body. As will I." His hand slipped naughtily down to cup Arthur's spent prick as he spoke. Shuddering, Arthur pulled away. He didn't want Merlin to honour his body because he was going to be king someday. He wanted Merlin to get lost in thoughts of Arthur, as Arthur so often found himself daydreaming of the firm curves of Merlin's lips, and the cutting sense of humour he used to have. Arthur realized, with a sinking heart, that he wanted Merlin, _his_ Merlin, to love him.

"I'd better get back," he said, rising and fumbling for his trousers.

Merlin hummed absently, and clicked at a beetle scuttling over a mossy stone. Dressed, Arthur paused to look at him. Sprawled naked on the forest floor, his spent cock curled against his thigh and his dark hair curling around his shoulders, Merlin looked beautiful. Arthur wanted to drop back onto the ground beside him, to run his hands over Merlin's exposed flank and his slightly furred chest. But Merlin 's eyes gleamed golden. The tree beneath which they'd made love was covered, now, in scarlet buds. Arthur swallowed, and left him.

He got back to the campsite to find Gwen and Lancelot squaring off against the three knights. They were arguing fiercely, but quietly, voices hushed, but steely. Ector held something in his hands, and was pointing at it angrily. Arthur was too far away to see whatever it was.

"What's going on here?" Arthur asked, stepping through the trees. They all turned to stare at him. Gwen's eyes were wide and frightened. Geraint and Breunor were staring at Arthur as though they'd never seen him before.

"Arthur, they know," Gwen said miserably.

Confused, Arthur lifted his chin and crossed his arms, assuming the most commanding expression he knew. Lancelot gave him a small nod, and moved to stand behind his shoulder, as good as promising to support Arthur should he need it. Geraint and Breunor glanced anxiously between Ector and Arthur.

"What is all this about, Ector?" Arthur asked.

Ector's eyes narrowed, and he drew himself up to his full height. "We found this in your saddlebag," Ector said. He lifted the bundle he was holding, and Arthur felt the blood drain from his face. It was Merlin's magic book.

"You had no right!" Arthur snapped.

"We had every right!" Geraint broke in. "We -- we trusted you, sire. How could you betray us like that? How could you betray your father?" Geraint looked as if he were going to be sick. Arthur felt his hands clench at his sides.

"It isn't what it looks like!"

"It's a book of magic!" Ector ripped a page from it, waving it in Arthur's face. "Every word in it is treason and lies! I suspected the warlock had his claws in you, but this . . . this!" Ector's face had gone red, and a vein bulged in his forehead. Suddenly, he turned and threw both page and book into the camp fire behind him. They ignited at once.

Arthur lunged for the fire, thinking he might somehow save the book. But Ector stood in his way, and Geraint and Breunor moved in to flank him.

Drawing his sword, Arthur pointed it at Ector. "Apologize for that," he ordered.

Ector glanced at the blade, then up at Arthur's face. His aging limbs quickened by his fervor, he stepped back, and drew his own sword in reply. "I cannot, sire. I have sworn to serve your family, but such treason against the king, I cannot overlook. You have been tainted by the sorcerer. Perhaps you are even conspiring with him."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Arthur shouted. "I haven't been conspiring with anybody."

Breunor, who'd been watching, anxiously, suddenly looked, not at Arthur, but behind him. A prickle went up Arthur's spine, and he straightened, beginning to turn. Then wiry arms wrapped around his neck, and Merlin's bare chest was pressing against his back. Merlin laid his head on Arthur's shoulder, and smiled at Ector, sharp and dangerous. In his hand, he twirled a red rose.

Anger and humiliation punched Arthur in the gut. "Merlin!" he hissed, prying Merlin's hold away from him. His thumb snagged on the rose's thorn as he did so, and a single drop of blood welled up and smeared across Merlin's pale wrist. Getting a better look at him, Arthur realized with horror that the signs of their love-making were written across Merlin's pale, nearly naked, body. An incriminating red mark marred the tender skin of his throat, and teeth-marks showed plainly against his jutting collarbone. Small blue bruises, obviously left from gripping fingers, dappled the sharp bones of Merlin's hips. Feeling the blood rise hot in his cheeks, and powerless to stop it, Arthur pulled free of Merlin's grip and stepped away. Merlin looked at him with wounded eyes.

Everyone stared at Arthur and Merlin, stunned into silence until Ector finally spoke, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Well," Ector said, "I suppose now we know why you've been so protective of the sorcerer."

"Is it true?" Gwen whispered. Tears had risen in her eyes, and even Lancelot was looking at Arthur with a slight frown on his lips.

"How long have you been consorting with him?" Ector sneered.

"It's not like that!" Arthur protested.

"You should have told us!" Geraint cried. "We deserved to know what we were getting ourselves into."

Swallowing, Breunor looked up at Arthur. He looked shaken, almost lost. "Please, sire," he said. "Say it isn't true. You wouldn't have betrayed us, I know it."

He was looking at Arthur, waiting for a response. Gwen, too, was watching, her hands twisting her shirt into knots, and Geraint, and Lancelot. Even Merlin was watching, mad and beautiful, deadly as a golden dagger. A small, superior smile twisted Ector's mouth, and Arthur wanted to punch him. He wanted to turn and run back into the woods. He wanted to protest, to say, _No! It's a lie!_

If he spoke the truth, Arthur knew there could be no going back. He'd no longer be a loyal subject of Camelot, not after so blatantly flaunting his father's orders in front of the knights. Once Uther got word of what had happened, he'd strip Arthur of his crown and choose an heir from the bevy of distant cousins living in the outskirts of the kingdom, far enough that Uther couldn't fear their nearness to the throne, yet close enough that he could call on them if needed. The future loomed in Arthur's mind with startling clarity. He wondered if this was what Merlin felt -- this horrifying sense that the future sped towards them, already decided and unavoidable.

Fear constricted Arthur's chest, and he hesitated, feeling their eyes upon him. He wanted to run, to outwit his future, to avoid it however he could. But Merlin stepped forward, suddenly, and stood by Arthur's side.

"I'm sorry," Merlin whispered, and Arthur stared at him, realizing that, in the moments they'd stood, facing off with Ector and the knights, his eyes ahd gone blue again They shone like sapphires from his face, which was reddened with sunburn and overgrown with the rough beard clinging to his jaw line and the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the tangled hair spilling over his face like a curtain of willow leaves. He reminded Arthur of the apple grove they'd camped in -- wild, rich with magic, yet undeniably beautiful.

Arthur straightened his shoulders. He drew in a deep breath, and then released it, as he did before battle. Deliberately, he reached for Merlin's hand. Merlin's fingers were warm, slightly damp against his own. Gwen made a choked sound as their fingers twined together, and Breunor looked as though he might pass out. Ector's eyes had narrowed into slits. He glanced at their hands, at Merlin's long fingers tanned nearly as golden as Arthur's now, at Merlin's knobby wrist and skinny arm. Merlin caught him watching and tried to smile, though it came across as a quick, conflicted twist of his mouth.

"Listen carefully," Arthur said, and swung his gaze around the circle, so he met everybody's eyes in turn. "I'm not enchanted. But I can no longer pretend to follow my father's orders. When I took my oath as a knight of Camelot, I swore to protect justice. But there's no justice in this! Merlin risked his life to save mine on the battlefield. I can't return his loyalty with a death sentence."

"Sire!" Ector barked, reaching for his sword. "I can't listen to this! Clearly you're under Merlin's influence. You must surrender, and allow us to take you back to Camelot."

"Be quiet, Ector," Arthur said. "Now listen up. Lancelot, Gwen, and I are going to take Merlin to village in Rordach's kingdom where he will be safe. They will stay with him. Maybe, in time, they can cure him of his madness. You can either help me with this task, or you can leave and go back to Camelot. I will return and face the consequences of my actions _after_ I've seen that Merlin is looked after, not before."

They all stared at him. For a long moment, the glade was silent, save for the rustling of the trees in the wind and Gwen's soft sniffles. Finally, Breunor stepped forward.

"I don't understand," he confessed. "I don't understand any of it. But you have always been honourable. If you say it's right that we disobey the king in this, then I will follow you, though it is treason."

"Shit," Geraint breathed. When they all looked at him, he smiled ruefully. "I think you're crazy, sire. But I guess I'm in, too."

"Ector?" Arthur asked.

"I will not abandon the orders of my king," Ector said stubbornly.

Arthur nodded, shortly. "Then go." He pointed towards the forest path, waiting for Ector to collect his things. But Ector held his place, stubbornly.

"I will take you back to Camelot," he said, "or die trying." Raising his sword, he lunged at Arthur.

The fight was over almost before it began. Ector fought well, with the strength and the fury of a much younger man. But Arthur parried his blows with easy precision. Ector feinted to the left, and Arthur pretended to fall for it. But as the older knight raised his sword, Arthur's flicked beneath it. A knee to the gut, a hard rap of the pommel against his head, and Ector was stumbling to his knees.

When he looked up at Arthur, his face looked stricken. The silver in his curls glinted as he bowed his head. He looked as old as Uther. He reminded Arthur suddenly of the chairs in Camelot's feast hall: grey beneath the shining coats of wax, and slightly worn, yet still noble in form and acceptable in function, age clinging doggedly to usefulness lest it be forgotten and cast out.

"Please, sire," Ector said. "Kill me quickly. Do not let me live with my failure to my king."

Arthur raised his sword, stared hard at Ector, and sheathed it with a click. "You can still be of use to your king, Sir Ector," he said. "Return to Camelot. Warn my father to prepare for my return. That is the honourable thing to do."

Ector stared at him. A jaw jumped in his throat. In a shaky motion, he nodded, and allowed Arthur to help him to his feet.

"Help him pack," Arthur said to Geraint and Breunor. They nodded, and hurried to help, unable to meet either Arthur or Ector's eyes. To Merlin, Arthur said, "Can you show him the way out of the forest?"

Merlin considered it, then turned to the woods. "_Heahdeor!_" he beckoned, holding out his hand. A moment later, a magnificent stag stepped out of the woods. When Merlin turned back to face them, his eyes were gold again.

"He knows the way from the forest. If you follow him, he will lead you to the road."

Ector looked at Merlin through narrowed eyes. "Will you lead me to my death, sorcerer?"

Merlin laughed, a low, cruel sound. "Hardly," he said. "You may wish I killed you, in the end. There is more honour in such a death than the one you will find. But go. Now. If you follow this stag, I swear to you, it will lead you safely back to Camelot."

Breunor handed Ector his bag, and he took it. Geraint helped him onto his horse. "This is a bitter day," he said. "I never thought I'd live to see my own prince beguiled by a sorcerer and turned to treachery and deceit."

"And I never thought my father would order me to kill a friend," Arthur said. "Go safely, Ector. Tell my father that I'm coming."

That evening was quiet, all of them lost to their own thoughts. Merlin disappeared into the forest and, by the time any of them noticed, they were so preoccupied, he'd returned carrying two dead hares by the ears. He tossed them at Gwen's feet.

"Thank you," she whispered, unable to look at him without seeing the marks that Arthur had left. She knelt by the hares and reached for her skinning knife.

"He's like a cat," Geraint marveled. "We're lucky it's hares and not field mice."

They all looked at him somberly. He scratched behind his ear, and fell back to his own thoughts. In his mind, he saw the bloated face of his dead cousin, and he shuddered.

After dinner, Geraint sat by Merlin, who was stretched out on his stomach along the grass, carefully watching a procession of black ants carry the dead body of a comrade back to their hill.

"Tell me honestly," Geraint said, quietly so the others couldn't hear. "How will I die?"

Merlin's gold eyes were almost kind when he looked at him. "You will fall off a rock," he said at last.

Geraint closed his eyes. Something like giddiness was rising in his chest. "A rock, huh?"

"When?" Geraint asked.

"Maybe tomorrow," Merlin said with a lazy shrug. "Maybe next week. Maybe ten years from now. Time is all muddled. But you'll never make it back to Camelot."

Geraint closed his eyes. Tears prickled against his eyelids, and he fought against them. "I don't want to die without honour," he whispered.

Merlin looked at him thoughtfully. "You will die in the service of the greatest king Albion has known," he said. "Surely there is honour enough in that?"

"The greatest?" Geraint asked, looking at him, sidelong. When Merlin nodded, Geraint managed a weak chuckle. "He's my third cousin, you know. On my mother's side."

"I know."

Geraint smiled weakly, and stood on shaky knees. Unsteadily, he crossed the field to collapse beside Breunor.

"What's the matter?" Breunor asked at once.

Geraint shook his head. Instead, he asked, "Your lute hasn't turned back into a rock, has it?" Breunor shook his head, and Geraint clapped him on the shoulder. "Do me a favour, old friend," he said. "Play something."

Breunor's lips thinned with worry, but he nodded, and reached for the lute. "What would you like?" he asked.

Geraint closed his eyes, leaning back on the log. "Something happy," he said.

As the first strains of the lute sounded through the small clearing, Arthur knelt beside Gwen, who was washing the dishes furiously, as though she'd like to break them. Her jaw clenched, and she scowled down at the grey water.

"Can't you even bring yourself to look at me?" Arthur asked quietly.

Gwen lifted her head. Her lips, her chin, were trembling. "What am I supposed to do?" she choked. "I thought I knew you, Arthur! I thought that we . . ."

"I'm sorry." Arthur crossed his arms over his knees, and stared off into the forest.

Gwen plunged the rag back into the dirty water. "Do you regret it?" she asked after a moment.

Arthur closed his eyes. Even now, his body flared with heat at the memory of Merlin's mouth opening to him, Merlin's body opening to him. He thought of Merlin's cheekbones. His ears. Merlin's knobby wrist and long, thin limbs. Merlin, cradling him on the battlefield.

"No," he admitted. She sniffled, but didn't respond. "I can't explain it," he said helplessly. "I love you, Gwen. You're kind, and strong. But with Merlin, I . . . he completes me somehow."

Gwen managed a shaky smile. "You're like two sides of the same coin," she offered.

"I guess you could say that." Arthur squeezed her hand. "Do you hate me now?"

She sighed. "I don't think I could ever hate you, Arthur." A blush came to her cheeks, and she swallowed, looking down at the wash water. "I . . . I understand why you did it," she admitted, and her gaze swung up, to where Lancelot sat by himself across the clearing, in the shade of an oak tree.

Arthur rested a hand on her shoulder. "Go to him," he said.

She blushed furiously. "I can't," she said. "I have to finish the dishes."

"I'll finish them," Arthur said, hauling her to her feet. "Go on!"

Gwen was looking at him speculatively. "Are you sure Merlin didn't bewitch you? You've never washed a plate in your life."

"Shut up!" Arthur said, and pushed her towards Lancelot. She gave him a disbelieving glance over her shoulder, then smiled shakily, and went.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Arthur rose and flopped down beside Merlin in the grass. "I need you to do some dishes for me, Merlin," he said.

The fish-mouthed expression Merlin managed was entirely worth the sudden drench of soapy water to his face.

But the uneasy cheer of the night before had vanished by morning. They rose at dawn, and breakfasted without speaking. They were all acutely mindful of Ector's absence. Merlin started into the forest, following a thin deer trail, and they followed him.

The path grew narrower as they climbed, and soon they had to lead the horses. At noon, the fog that had enveloped the forest all day finally dissipitated into thin wisps, and they found themselves staring down at the forest below. They'd climbed higher than they realized, and could see for miles around.

"Look at that," Geraint breathed. Below, the forest spread out, a blanket of reds and oranges, evergreens and twisting branches. It was wider than they'd thought, stretching for miles around on every side.

"No wonder we couldn't escape it," Gwen said softly. "It's huge."

"I'm thrilled to be out of the trees," Geraint said, spreading his arms wide. "I feel like I left the world and stepped back into it again."

And then he lost his footing, and tumbled off the rocky ledge.

"Geraint!" Breunor cried, lunging for him. But it was too late -- Geraint fell, face-first, from the rock and crashed through a willow tree below. His feet tangled in the branches, slowing his fall somewhat, so only his head plunged into the rapid river below. By the time the others had scrambled down, he was already dead.


	8. Chapter 8

They buried Geraint beneath a willow tree, not far from the spot where they'd camped the previous night. Gwen wept softly as they lowered his body, wrapped in his bedroll, into the grave. Lancelot gripped her shoulders, helpless to stop the tremors running through her.

"Goodbye, old friend," Breunor whispered, kneeling to throw a violet into the grave. "I'll see you on the other side." Unsteadily, he climbed to his feet, and wiped surreptitiously at his eyes. _No man is worth your tears,_ Arthur had told him, shortly after their first battle together. But Geraint might have been, Breunor thought, watching hollowly as Arthur and Lancelot each took up one of the small camping shovels and began to fill in the grave. Geraint had been good to him.

They camped near the grave that night. They'd spent too long burying Geraint to make it much further before sunset. Besides, none of them relished the thought of leaving his body behind. Gwen made dinner, and they ate it without speaking. Afterwards, Lancelot produced a bottle of whiskey from his traveling pack, and they passed it around the fire, drinking it in small, burning gulps.

When darkness had fallen, Arthur slipped away from the camp fire, and made his way into the woods. He hadn't seen Merlin since Geraint's fall, but he wasn't surprised when, after a few minutes in the forest, Merlin slipped up behind him and wrapped his arms around Arthur's waist. Arthur turned in one quick motion, and shoved Merlin back against a rock.

"You knew this was going to happen!" he cried. "You knew, and you did nothing to stop it."

Merlin's eyes were wide and golden, his face devoid of guilt. "You can't stop winter from coming," he said reasonably. "Or the flowers from blooming in spring."

"_You_ could," Arthur spat.

"Yes," Merlin said. "But I wouldn't."

He smiled slowly, gazing down at Arthur's angry face, at the large hands gripping his shoulders. Arthur's predatory stance didn't frighten him (indeed, they both knew Merlin could kill Arthur with a thought), but in fact sent a queer tingle of excitement down his back. He remembered, as from a dream, squaring off with Arthur, their voices rising and falling in anger. Merlin no longer felt anger, or love, or sadness. It was as though he'd carried those emotions in a basket, and spilled them his journey into the forest. He carried nothing in him now but his magic, and it permeated every pore of him, leaving no room for anything else. But Arthur's anger radiated off him. He could smell rising in hot waves from Arthur's neck, and feel it vibrating beneath his fingers. He imagined it would taste hot and salty, like blood, and was lowering his mouth to Arthur's neck to see when Arthur's hands tightened around his shoulders, holding him back.

"Don't."

"You want me," Merlin argued, shifting his body in a sinuous curve against Arthur's. "I can smell your desire."

Arthur flushed, hotly, but didn't back down. "I want Merlin," he said. "Not you."

"I'm Merlin. You told me so."

"No." Arthur stepped backwards, away from temptation. He folded his hands across his chest. "_My_ Merlin cares about people. He does whatever he can to help them. He wouldn't have sat by and watched Geraint die." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "We're leaving," he said. "Tomorrow morning. You're not coming with us." Squaring his shoulders, he turned away, and started back towards the campsite.

"Arthur?"

Arthur's throat jumped, but he refused to look behind him. A long-fingered hand settled over his shoulder, perching cautiously there, like a bird ready to take flight.

"Arthur?" Merlin said again. There was a different quality in his voice now, almost scared. Arthur wondered if this was some kind of a trap. Warily, he turned -- and saw Merlin standing close behind him, watching him with wide, blue eyes.

They stared at each other for a second, maybe two. Then they were stumbling into each other's arms. Merlin clung to Arthur's neck, burying his face in his collarbone. Arthur gripped Merlin's head with the back of his hand, keeping him close.

"I'm sorry," Merlin choked. "I'm so sorry. Please don't leave me. I can't do it without you. There's a wild magic inside me, Arthur. I can't fight it. It's too strong for me. You . . . you draw me out of it somehow. But I know I'll slip back in."

"Isn't there any way to stop it?" Arthur asked, speaking the words into Merlin's tangled hair.

"I don't know," Merlin said. "If only I had my magic book."

Arthur froze. "The one you used to hide in your room?"

Merlin looked at him with wide eyes. "You knew about that?"

"Not until after," Arthur admitted. "Gaius told me about it. He . . . wanted me to bring it for you."

"Did you?" Merlin asked, hope kindling in his eyes.

Merlin knelt before the fire pit, staring with disbelief at the charred remains of his magic book. The cover was blackened, unrecognizable; the pages white ash. When Merlin tentatively touched a finger to the spine, the entire thing collapsed.

"I'm sorry," Arthur said behind him. At the edges of the old campsite, the others watched them quietly.

"Gaius gave it to me," Merlin said. It felt like the ashes had lodged in his throat; he swallowed, blinking back tears. "It was the only spell book I ever had."

"Gaius taught you how to be a sorcerer?" Arthur asked, brows drawing up in surprise.

Merlin gave a harsh, bitter laugh. "Gaius taught me to use spells," he said. "I've always been a sorcerer, though. I just didn't know what I was doing before I met him. This book helped me focus my power. I don't even know where to find another one." Stepping close, Arthur rested a hand on Merlin's shoulder, as he'd comfort one of his knights. But Merlin twisted back to press his cheek into Arthur's flank, and his arms lifted, wrapping around Arthur's waist. Swallowing sudden tenderness, Arthur returned the embrace, stroking Merlin's hair. "This is it then," Merlin said, dully. "The wild magic is going to take me."

"No," Arthur protested, gripping Merlin's shoulders. "There has to be another way."

Merlin pulled back enough to look him in the eye. "I told you!" he said. "The only spells I knew were in that book."

Then improvise!" Arthur snapped. "Look at everything you've done since you've come here. Look at what you did on the battlefield. Amazing things, with fire, and wind, and water, and earth. You didn't have the book with you then."

"No!" Merlin snapped. "And look what happened! The power overwhelms me when I draw on it here." Merlin stilled, looking at a far off point in the distance. "Maybe . . . " he started, then fell silent.

"What?" Arthur asked at once.

"Forget it," Merlin said. "It's stupid."

"What?" Arthur asked. "What were you thinking?"

Merlin sighed. "I had an idea," he admitted. "A way to help me find a spell. It's too risky, though."

Arthur pulled back, studying him. Merlin's blue eyes were troubled. He was worrying gently at his bottom lip in a way that made Arthur want to capture it between his own lips to keep it safe. "How is it risky?" he asked, curling his hands around Merlin's arms.

Merlin sighed, leaning into the touch. "It would draw on the wild magic," he said. "It might overwhelm me. I don't want to lose myself again." His voice went small. "Not if it means losing you."

Arthur swallowed. "You can do this," he said softly. "I have faith in you."

"You're an idiot," Merlin said flatly.

Arthur smirked at him. "No, that's your job."

A startled laugh escaped from Merlin, and his shoulders relaxed a bit beneath Arthur's hands. Standing suddenly, he gave Arthur a conflicted smile, then turned around to face the fire. "Keep touching me," Merlin said, voice gruff. "Remind me not to get lost."

Stepping closer to Merlin Arthur wrapped his arms around him from behind, tugging Merlin backwards until his spine fit flush against Arthur's chest. Merlin's hands rested on Arthur's forearms, and he swayed into the embrace for a moment. Arthur kissed the back of his neck, and Merlin sighed.

"Is this good?" Arthur whispered in his ear, kissing the soft skin behind it.

Merlin swallowed, trembling. "Yeah. Um, that's fine." His head lolled back as Arthur kept kissing, from his ear down to the underside of his jaw. A shudder went through him as Arthur's teeth fastened on his throat, nipping gently, and he pulled away, twisting around in Arthur's arms to give him a glare that would have been a lot more convincing if his eyes weren't so dark and fond. "Stop distracting me!" Merlin said.

"I was only trying to help," Arthur said, unrepentant.

"Well stop it," Merlin said. Turning back to the ashes, he lifted one hand before him. From behind, Arthur couldn't see his eyes flare gold, but he swore he felt the magic pulse through Merlin's body, tingling and hot. "_Cume thoden!_ Merlin said, and the ashes in the fire pit rose, swirling in the air around them like a cyclone. Arthur swallowed as the ashy wind circled them, and he closed his eyes, drawing Merlin tighter against him. Merlin pointed to the ground. "_Awreon me!_" The ashes spread themselves across the dirt, a sheet of white and grey. Arthur opened his mouth, getting ready to ask what the point of that was – then Merlin hummed a little, another flare of magic pulsing through him, and the ashes on the ground began to coil and twist like snakes. As Arthur watched, they flowed into letters, then words, spelling something out in that strange, magical language Arthur had seen when he flipped through Merlin's book.

Merlin had stilled in his arms now. Biting his lip, Arthur turned him around to face him. Merlin's face was tilted down, his eyes closed, his brow still furrowed in concentration. But as Arthur watched, his eyes fluttered open. His eyes were so very blue.

"You did it!" Arthur grinned, practically lifting Merlin off his feet in his exuberance.

"Yeah," Merlin agreed. But something was wrong – Arthur could hear it in his voice.

"What is it?" he asked. "That's a spell, right? Won't it work?"

"It should," Merlin said. "But I won't do it."

"Why not?" Arthur said, and Merlin glared at him.

"Because it would put you at risk, too!"

The words hung between them for a second. Then Arthur lifted his chin, in that way he had whenever he wanted to be particularly brave, and Merlin wanted to sob. "How so?" Arthur asked, gruffly.

"The wild magic is pressing all around me," Merlin said, by way of explanation. "Like it's a river, and I'm a stone in the midst of it. It's wearing me away. This spell lets a non-magical person step in to dam the river, so to speak. I wouldn't be able to use my magic as long as the spell was in effect."

"But that sounds perfect!" Arthur protested.

Merlin stared at him. "Are you insane? Dams break, Arthur!"

"But it would by you some more time?" Merlin pressed his lips together, refusing to speak. Arthur leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to his cheekbone. "Do it," he said gruffly. "For us"

Merlin sighed, looking defeated. "I'll need a rope," he said.

Arthur turned to Gwen, but she'd already turned, hurrying towards the spare coil of rope she kept in her travel bag. She tried to hand it to Merlin, but he held up his hand, holding her off.

"Just a second," he said. "Arthur, give me your right hand."

Arthur did, and Merlin pressed their palms together.

"Tie our wrists together," Merlin told Gwen. She glanced at their joined hands, and her eyes widened slightly.

"Is this a handfasting?" Arthur asked drily, amused by the way Merlin blushed.

"It draws its magic from the same ritual," Merlin said.

The rope gleamed golden as his eyes. It constricted, tightening suddenly around their joined wrists, and Arthur gritted his teeth at the pain. The golden coils burned his skin.

Merlin continued to chant, his voice gaining power, and the rope burned hotter now, a band of light around their joined hands, too bright to look at.

Merlin intoned the last words of the spell, throwing his head back and shouting the words to the heavens. Arthur had a moment to be alarmed at Merlin's shout of pain, and then he too felt it. It burned like indigestion. His skin crawled, as if something were trying to get in. But Merlin seemed to feel it worse. He was sobbing, arching his back, clawing almost desperately at his chest.

"What is it?" Arthur asked, catching his arms.

Merlin shuddered. His skin had gone faintly green. "It's my magic," he said. "I've never been cut off by it before. I can't . . ." His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fainted.


	9. Chapter 9

They made him a pallet of Geraint's old blankets, and lay him on it. He curled there, shivering. When Arthur touched his skin, it burned. Gwen dabbed his face with cool water, and looked up at Arthur with helpless eyes.

"I . . . I've been a nursemaid," she said. "But only when Gaius was supervising. I don't know what to do."

"This is my fault," Arthur said, staring at the band of gold on his wrist. "I told him to do it."

"He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't wanted to," Gwen started to protest, but Arthur suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened, and she looked at him, offended.

"Quiet!" he hissed. "I hear something." It came again – a rustling in the bushes.

Breunor stood, reaching for his sword. "Show yourself!" he shouted.

The bushes parted, and somebody stepped through

It was Morgana. Her green velvet cloak was caked with mud, and beneath the ragged hem of her violet dress, her pale ankles were scratched and bloody. Her delicate slippers were so torn and dirty that it was impossible to tell which colour they'd started out as. She carried a walking stick in one hand.

For a moment, they all just stared at her. Then Gwen shrieked, rushing forward, and Morgana caught her in a tight embrace, burying her face into Gwen's shoulder. Arthur, Lancelot, and Breunor stared at the two of them, dumbfounded. On his pallet, Merlin let out a low moan.

"You're okay!" Gwen whispered into her hair. "I've been so worried!"

"Morgana," Arthur said, when he felt he could manage her name. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"I . . . I got away," she said, clinging to Gwen's hands. "Morgause was always watching me, but one day, her attention slipped, and I just ran." She sounded scared, almost panicked, but something about her voice nagged on Arthur. It reminded him, inexplicably, of searching a castle full of sleeping people, and finding Morgana wide awake and terrified.

"And you ended up _here?_ Arthur asked, incredulous.

Her jaw lifted a fraction of an inch. "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "I stayed in towns, at first. Near the border. I didn't dare go back to Camelot. Morgause said she told you about my dreams."

Arthur flushed. Even after Morgause had told him about Morgana's magic, he'd been too busy fretting about Merlin to realize that Morgana, too, would be sentenced to death under his father's laws. Life seemed, for a moment, so horribly unfair.

"Then I saw a vision," Morgana said. "Of Merlin. When I learned that he was ill, I had to come at once.

"Why's that?" Arthur asked.

"Because I know a cure," Morgana said.

"I studied magic with Morgause," Morgana explained, after they had her settled by the campfire, wrapped in Geraint's old cloak, with a mug of wild mint tea warming her pale hands. "She has an amazing library. I've learned so much . . ." She drifted off a moment, sound wistful. Gwen tucked the blanket closer around her. Lancelot watched the two of them thoughtfully.

Arthur cleared his throat. "The cure?" he prompted.

Morgana shook her head, as though to clear it. "Oh, yes. There's a fountain in this forest, three days to the west of here. A spring bubbles up from a cedar stump. It's sad that anyone who drinks from it will find himself sound of mind."

"And you think it would work?" Gwen asked eagerly.

Morgana hesitated, running her finger around the edge of her wooden mug. "I don't know," she admitted. "It's mostly legend, really. But we're so close. I don't see how it could hurt to try." Standing, she crossed to where Merlin lay shivering on his pallet, beads of sweat dampening his forehead. "We have to do something," she said. "Look at him."

Her slim fingers pressed Merlin's hair away from his head, and Arthur swallowed down a sudden flash of jealousy. Merlin had brought her flowers, he remembered, and lingered outside her chambers until Arthur warned him to stop. Even now, Merlin stirred beneath the cool touch of her fingers.

"Morgana," he whispered, and fear coiled in Arthur's gut.

He shouldn't be jealous, he told himself. He'd kissed Merlin, and made love to him in the forest. He'd stepped between Merlin and the wild magic, which he could still feel buzzing beneath his skin, like an insect searching for a way through a window. For all his old affections for her, Merlin had never shared anything of substance with Morgana. As far as Arthur knew, at least.

Morgana appointed herself Merlin's nurse on the journey back into the forest. When they stopped to rest, she helped Arthur pull him down from horse and lay him out on a makeshift pallet. Kneeling by his side, she wiped his brow with a cool, damp cloth, and murmured quiet words of reassurance while he moaned and shook his head. She seemed to recede from the rest of them in those moments, as though she and Merlin were miles away.

"I've got him," Arthur said one evening, when Morgana looked ready to settle down beside Merlin and feed him dinner. Her brows lifted, and she seemed ready to protest, but something in Arthur's expression swayed her. "Go sit with Gwen," he encouraged her. "She's missed you."

"You've never been one to sit with a patient before," she said, her voice pitched so evenly that Arthur couldn't tell whether the words were meant to goad or not.

"Things have changed," Arthur said, truthfully. He took Morgana's place at Merlin's bedside, and, dipping the spoon into the thin broth Gwen had made, did his best to convince Merlin to swallow it. After spilling two spoonfuls over Merlin's face and neck, Arthur gave up. Instead, he dipped his index finger into the broth, and pressed, it, dripping, to Merlin's mouth.

Merlin's eyelashes fluttered when Arthur stroked his damp finger against his full bottom lip. He kissed the pad of Arthur's finger tip, butterfly soft, and his pink tongue darted out to taste the broth.

"That's right," Arthur told him, stroking Merlin's shoulder with his free hand, and dipping his other fingers back into the broth. "Open up," he murmured, bringing them to Merlin's mouth. Merlin parted his lips. When Arthur pressed two fingers into the warm, wet heat of his mouth, he suckled on them weakly, like a kitten.

Tenderness washed through Arthur as he fed Merlin like that. He wanted, desperately, to lick the trail of salty broth where it had dribbled from Merlin's lips, to take Merlin's lower lip between both of his own and kiss him, as they hadn't kissed since Merlin had fallen ill. He wanted to lie along Merlin on the pallet and take him in his arms, let him draw whatever strength he could from Arthur's body. But, mindful of the others watching, he limited himself to this small indulgence: the wet pressure of Merlin's mouth around his fingers. He'd watched the stable keeper feed a newborn foal like this, when its mother had died in the birthing process. If anyone asked, he would explain it like that, in practicalities.

Merlin's fingers fluttered on the wool blanket, and lifted to rest on Arthur's free hand. Arthur caught the hand, returning Merlin's weak squeeze with a stronger one of his own. Merlin's lips moved gently against Arthur's wet fingers, not licking, not sucking -- speaking, Arthur realized. Leaning over Merlin, he brought his ear close to Merlin's mouth. But at the faint whisper of sound, Arthur felt his heart sink. "Morgana . . . " Merlin whispered, ". . . danger . . ."

Selfish, he thought, to hope that Merlin's first words in two days would be of him. Yet he supposed Merlin was right: doubtless, Morgana was in danger. Morgause would be looking for her now that she'd escaped. Arthur had fought Morgause twice in battle, and didn't look forward to doing so again. Yet he didn't see much other choice. Merlin could hardly face her, in this condition.

But Merlin was whispering more now -- nonsense words. Ignoring the other's sharp looks, Arthur pressed his lips to Merlin's forehead to find it hot with fever. "Hemlock," Merlin whispered urgently. "My fault . . . the dragon said. Arthur, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Arthur soothed him, feeling helpless. "Morgana knows a way to help you. You're going to be okay, Merlin."

Having finished her own supper, Gwen came to sit beside Arthur. "How is he?" she asked.

"Hallucinating," Arthur said shortly.

Gwen frowned, and squeezed Arthur's shoulder. He leaned back into the warmth of her touch, but didn't look away from Merlin's pained and sweaty face. With only a whisper of silk announcing her presence, Morgana came to join them. She cradled a steaming mug in her hands -- a pungent, woody steam rose up from it.

"What's that?" Arthur asked, grudgingly scooting aside to make room for her only when it looked like she might perch on his lap if she didn't.

"It's a potion I brewed," Morgana said. "It will help his fever."

Arthur scowled at it. "I don't think Gaius used that one before."

The look Morgana gave him was almost pitying. "Gaius would be a much better physician if Uther would let him use _all_ of the methods at his disposal. Merlin's sickness is magical. It will take magic to fight it."

"Are you sure it's safe?" Arthur asked, and Morgana drew herself up, offended.

"Of course it's safe! I've taken it myself, lots of times. Not all magic is dangerous, Arthur, no matter what Uther says."

"I never said it was!" Arthur protested.

Morgana stared at him for a moment, then at Merlin, and then, to his horror, delight flickered in her eyes, and she covered her mouth with her hand. "You're in love with him!" she said, her voice dancing with laughter.

Breunor and Lancelot glanced up from where they'd been speaking over the fire, and despite himself, Arthur felt blood rush to his cheeks. "I am not!"

"You are!" Morgana insisted. "You're hovering over him like a mother bear. It's adorable. Isn't it, Gwen?"

"Yes, my lady," Gwen said, smiling sympathetically at Arthur.

Morgana squeezed Arthur's arm, then actually patted his hand, like he were one of the ladies at court. "Oh, Arthur," she said, leaning forward, "you'll have to tell me all about it! How long have you felt this way? Does Merlin know? He has to know, doesn't he?"

Arthur pulled away with a grimace. "I'm going to check the perimeter," he barked, and fled Merlin's sickbed with Morgana's laughter rolling behind him. Behind him, he heard Gwen's soft voice, something chiding in her tone, and Morgana's airy response. Arthur's hands coiled into fists as he retreated, angry both at Morgana's teasing and at his own weakness. He never knew how to respond to women when they got like that. In fact, since his childhood wet nurse was retired, he spent little time with women at all, outside the safe confines of the ballroom or the dinner table. Arthur felt uneasy in the company of women, as though they played a game for which he'd never learned the rules. And Morgana knew it, damn her.

Lancelot and Breunor had been sitting together on a log as they ate, conversing quietly. But as Arthur stormed away from the sick bed, they quieted, and Breunor stood.

"Are you alright, sire?" he asked.

"Fine!" Arthur snapped. He glared back at the sickbed, where Morgana had somehow convinced Merlin to sip straight from her bowl, then turned away, fuming.

Breunor's eyes were soft with pity. "Sire," he began, something hesitant and deferential in his voice, then, seeing the thunder clouds in Arthur's face, he thought better of the words. "The horses are ready whenever Merlin is," he said instead.

"Good," Arthur said.

As they drew further into the forest and the trees grew larger, Merlin slowly regained his strength, thanks, Arthur supposed, to Morgana's potions. His eyes had gone golden again. Arthur knew that, were it not for the binding spell holding Merlin's magic at bay, he would be completely lost to it. By the third day, Merlin could sit up, shakily, in the saddle before Arthur, his thin shoulders pressed back against Arthur's chest. Near twilight, they finally found the spring, which bubbled up from the weathered base of a wide cedar stump in a slow, steady trickle that gathered in a still, half-moon-shaped pool at the base of the stump. Merlin had been napping in the circle of Arthur's arms, his head lolling back on Arthur's shoulder, but as they drew to a stop, he raised his head and inhaled the mingled scents of wood, water, and moss. Lancelot dismounted, and stepped close to Arthur's stallion, lifting his arms to help Merlin down.

Merlin stood on wobbly, coltish legs, one hand on Lancelot's arm for balance. He was taking in the trees with his golden eyes, a small, troubled frown drawing his brows. The forest was silent, save for the steady bubble of water. Swinging down from the saddle, Arthur took Merlin's arm from Lancelot, drew him up the small rise to the fountain.

Morgana had reached it first. Stepping forward, she pulled a silver chalice from an inner pocket of her gown. It was small and finely wrought, but badly in need of polishing, its tarnish dark against the pale skin of her fingers. Careless of her silk dress, Morgana dropped to her knees on the forest floor, and raised the chalice in both hands to press against the water-logged stump. The first trickle of water running down the bowl of the chalice had a clear, tinkling sound, different from the steady flow of water down the sides of the stump. Morgana held the chalice in place until water lapped its rim. Then she stood, and offered the chalice to Merlin.

He stared at her, but blindly. In his mind, the image of Morgana holding the chalice blurred, so she was both Nimueh offering the water of life, and himself, bearing a wine skin full of hemlock. Beside him, Arthur shook his head to clear it. He saw only Morgana, dark hair streaming down her back and water dripping in a steady beat from her sleeve, where she'd caught it in the fountain. Yet something troubled him -- the too-sincere calm of her eyes, perhaps, or the faint smile curving her mouth. Without realizing it, he tightened his hand around Merlin's arm.

"You don't have to drink," he said, pitching his voice low, for Merlin alone. "We can find another way."

Merlin blinked, turning back to Arthur as though he'd forgotten he was there. He smiled, sadly, at him, and lifted a hand to touch Arthur's cheek. "But I do," he said, sounding almost like his former self. "It's my destiny to drink it." Merlin's right hand drifted from Arthur's cheek to his shoulder, then, he startled everyone by leaning forward to kiss him, a brief brush of lips that nonetheless left Arthur dizzy.

Turning, Merlin took the chalice. His fingers brushed Morgana's, and their eyes held each other's for a long moment. When she stepped back, Morgana seemed smaller. Shaken.

Merlin lifted the glass to her in a toast, and Arthur's stomach turned. The gesture brought him back to his father's feast hall, to Merlin making that same, ironic, gesture to King Bayard before drinking the poison that saved Arthur's life and nearly ended his own. This seemed wrong, suddenly. Everything. The spring, Morgana's presence, the long hours she'd spent by Merlin's sickbed. Arthur opened his mouth. He wanted to cry out, stop Merlin. But he was too late . . . Merlin tilted the chalice to his lips and drank. His Adam's apple bobbed in a sinuous movement as he swallowed. When he lowered the chalice, a drop of water clung to the corner of his mouth. He licked at it, absently, eyes drifting shut. When his lashes fluttered upwards, his irises were blue.

Arthur felt his grin splitting his face. Gwen was laughing, bright and bubbling as the stream itself, and Lancelot's smile was wide and gentle. Even Breunor, who'd never seen Merlin's eyes their natural color, felt their joy washing over him like a wave. Stumbling forward, Arthur swept Merlin into his arms. Merlin stared at him, his expression confused and suddenly shy. Hesitantly, his hands lifted to rest on Arthur's shoulders.

"Arthur?" he asked. "Where am I? How . . . ?" Catching sight of the glowing circle of light around his wrist, he stared at it, then at the matching one on Arthur's. He was opening his mouth to ask another question when the first spasm of pain hit him.

Crying out, Merlin doubled over, collapsing in Arthur's arms.

"Merlin?" Arthur cried, alarmed. He tried to keep him upright and, when that failed, followed him to the ground, pushing Merlin's hair back from his face as he retched and vomited. His blood glistened on the new spring grass.

Betrayal twisted like a knife in Arthur's gut, and he stared up at Morgana as Merlin coughed and whimpered in his arms. Her face was white, stricken. She'd dropped the chalice, and it lay dripping onto the mossy ground. Gwen was staring at her as though she might be sick.

"What have you done?" Arthur asked.

"What I had to do," she said, her voice high and panicked. "Arthur he . . . he tried to kill me. In Camelot. He might not remember, but I do."

"You lied," Arthur said flatly. "All this time. You've been lying to me."

"I had to!" she cried. "It was his word against mine, and I knew you'd pick him."

Merlin's head lolled back to rest on Arthur's shoulder. His eyes were shut, lashes fluttering rapidly against his cheek, and a thin trail of blood flowed down his chin.

"No," he mumbled, gripping Arthur's sleeve. "I'm not supposed to die here. It doesn't make sense. You'd understand, too, if you've seen it. It's beautiful, and painful, and --" the pain sliced through him again, and he screamed, throwing his head back. Blood was trickling from his nose. "No!" Merlin choked, and the next words out of his mouth were hoarse and sibilant, coming too fast to follow.

His eyes opened and flared gold, and then, he faded from their vision entirely, replaced by the incongruous sight of Camelot, the castle's towers coated with a thin layer of snow, and festooned with pennants in Pendragon red and gold. The vision swoops over the castle, eventually coming to rest over the courtyard, filled with the largest crowd any of them has ever seen. They're dressed in their finest silks and velvets, pink cheeks rising from fur-lined mantles, and everywhere, all of them, practically quivering with excitement. A trumpet sounds, and they all fall quiet, turning to see Arthur emerge from the doors to the castle.

He's wearing an ermine cape, and it trails behind him on the red velvet carpet laid out over the snowy grass. A golden sword gleams at his hip, and he wears a ruby ring on his left hand. He crosses the courtyard slowly, and as he passes, the people watching fall to their knees in the snow. Arthur ascends the three steps to the throne, and kneels.

Inexplicably, it's Merlin who waits there for him. Merlin, dressed in flowing robes of blue velvet, his hair cropped short once again and his beard neatly trimmed. Merlin sets the crown on Arthur's head, and his voice rings out over the crowd.

"Magic gave birth to you, Arthur Pendragon, and magic bled for you. Magic hid in the shadows to see you rise to adulthood, and now, finally, magic crowns you, the rightful king of Camelot."

"Hail, King Arthur!" someone cries, and the cry is taken up by the crowd. They're laughing, crying, clapping their hands, calling, "King Arthur!" and "Long live the king!"

Arthur's humbled by it, almost speechless. There's something desperate in his face as he looks up at Merlin, who smiles down, tears glistening in his blue eyes. Rising to his feet, Arthur squeezes Merlin's shoulder. His hand remains there as he turns to face the crowd.

"With you, I mourn my father," he says. "But let us not mourn the ending of his vendetta. From this day forward, magic lives and breathes in Camelot."

The vision blurs, and Arthur is gone, replaced by Morgana. She's older now. Her skin has lost some of its youthful radiance, and fine lines are beginning to form around her eyes. She's still beautiful, though, slim and dignified with her shiny hair and full lips. She's leaning back against a cushioned divan, and a handsome youth is stretched out full-length upon it, his head resting in her lap. She's stroking his dark hair gently, but her eyes are troubled.

"He's like a brother to me," she's saying. "He's been kind." The youth's eyes snap open, wide and impossibly blue.

"A brother who killed your sister," Mordred says, mocking. "A brother would celebrate _all_ magic, Morgana, not just that his pet sorcerer approves. A true brother would heed your warnings. Arthur's set his sights too high. He's moving too fast. He's already conquered half of Albion."

"The people love him," Morgana offers weakly.

Mordred snorts. "The peasants are easily fooled. Now that a commoner wears the queen's coronet and the knighthood is open to those outside the old families, every farmer and innkeeper likes to think that his son will grow up to be a lord. They don't care that their own lives are no easier under Arthur's rule than their old kings'."

"Arthur gives them hope."

"Hope is a lie," Mordred snaps. "It's the present that counts. How has your life changed now that Arthur is king? Your old handmaiden is on the throne, and you've no more power than any of the women at court. We both know that you should be wearing that crown, Morgana. At the very least, you should have a position equal to Merlin's. So why are you making this so difficult?"

"I can't . . ." Morgana whispers.

Mordred laughs, cruelly. "Then leave," he says. "Go crawling on your hands and knees back to Arthur. Maybe he'll make you Queen Guinevere's lady in waiting. The peasants would love that, wouldn't they?"

"I hate you," Morgana says, her shoulders shaking. "You've ruined everything."

Mordred lifts his head from Morgana's lap and rests it on her shoulder, his arms going around her waist. "Morgana," he says, as if she were the young one. "You've never hated me."

She buries her face in his hair, and refuses to answer. His fingers stroke her arms.

"Come on," he whispers. "I'm not asking you to kill him. Just give me something I can work with.

"Well," Morgana says at last. "There is something. It's not much." His hands still, and she swallows, then continues. "His wife? Guinevere? Their marriage is a sham . . ."

Her voice drifts off, and then they, too, are fading.

A twisted dagger is in Mordred's hands, and it flashes blue as he drives it down, into Arthur's heart.

"No!" Merlin screams, his eyes glowing molten, but he's too late, too late.

Rainclouds hang over the grim procession of knights as they make their way back to Camelot, bearing Arthur's body on a litter lined with snowy fur. Merlin watches from the trees, tears streaming down his face. Lancelot beckons him to join the procession, but he shakes his head. He turns. He runs.

Then the images are flashing by too quick to comprehend. Guinevere, dressed all in black, her greying curls elaborately plaited around a golden crown. Her lips tremble, and tears glisten in her eyes. Beside her, Lancelot sniffs quietly, his head bowed. They are close enough to touch, but not touching, never again. A wooden boat cuts smoothly through the waters of an ancient lake. Three women stand on it, still as statues, one at the prow, one at the stern, and the third in the middle. Each of them wore a white, hooded robe that obscures their features. A golden-haired man sits near the prow, between two of the standing women, his head bowed in contemplation. A thinner, dark-haired man crouches in the rear, at the last woman's feet. His eyes gleam golden as he turns to look behind them.

Deep in the forest, a human heart beats inside an oak tree.

In the yard of an abbey, a stone lies over an empty grave.

In a courtyard covered with snow, a sword grows rusty where it protrudes from a stone.

A loud crack sounded as the vision faded. When it cleared, Merlin and Arthur lay face-down on the damp and mossy forest floor. Their hands were joined around the cedar stump, which had split in two. The water dribbling from the base of it gleamed like morning sunlight. For a moment, the others could only stare at them. Their bodies were as still as death. Then Merlin coughed, and Arthur groaned.

"Are you . . . ?" Merlin started. His throat felt raw, and his entire body ached.

"I'm fine," Arthur said, similarly hoarse. "You?"

"I'll live." Merlin blinked open blue eyes, and raised himself up one elbow, staring down at their linked hands, at the bands of light glowing around their wrists. Releasing him, Arthur clambered, clumsily, to his feet, and reached to help Merlin up.

Morgana was staring at them in horror. She started to draw back, but Lancelot caught her shoulders, holding her in place. "I don't understand," Morgana said, as Merlin turned his unsettlingly blue eyes on her. "The spring . . . it was poison. You should be dead."

"It was the spell," said Gwen. They all stared at her, and she pointed at the glowing bands of light on Merlin and Arthur's wrists. "It has to be."

Merlin was nodding. "The stream was poisoned," he said. "But I was the only one to drink from it. I was drawing on your strength," he said to Arthur, gratitude shining in his eyes. "I didn't die because you didn't."

"That," said a new voice said, "can be remedied."

And Sir Ector limped out of the trees. He held his crossbow, cocked and ready to fire. Dropping to a crouch, he steadied it at Arthur.

"Forgive me, sire," he said. "But I cannot sit by and let you loose magic on Camelot."

He cocked the bow, and several things happened at once. Merlin lifted his hand, speaking the words to a spell. But the magic evaded his grasp, still held from him by Arthur who trying to dodge, but slowly, too slowly, his body weakened from helping Merlin fight off the poison. Lancelot released Morgana, and threw himself at Ector, knowing in his heart that he would be too late, while Gwen launched herself in the opposite direction, hoping to knock Arthur from the bolt's path. Breunor drew his sword, and started towards Ector, but he was too far, he'd have to cross the clearing to reach him. And seeing all this, knowing he'd have time, at least, to spare his kingdom the destiny he'd glimpsed in the sorcerer's vision, Ector began to release the crossbow bolt -- and gasping, stumbling backwards, fell to the ground with blood bubbling from his lips and the shiny hilt of a dagger protruding from his chest.

They all stared at him, and then, turning, at Morgana who, still kneeling on the ground where Lancelot had left her, had drawn her dress up to reveal her creamy thigh . . . and an empty leather sheath strapped around it. Tears ran down her face, smearing kohl across her cheeks. Swallowing, she stared down at her shaking hand, still extended in a throw. She'd always had perfect aim. Drawing back her hand, she clutched it, trembling, to herself.

"I'm sorry," she stammered, glancing from one stunned face to the other, as if she didn't entirely know which of them she meant to address. Her eyes still glowed with the remnants of the vision. "I'm so, so sorry."


	10. Chapter 10

"What happens next?" Breunor asked that night, after Ector's body had been buried and a cairn of stones piled over his grave. Arthur had refused to bury him without a marker, as they might an enemy soldier. ("He died upholding his promise to my father," Arthur had insisted. "We'll give him the funeral of a knight of Camelot.")

"We'll go home," Merlin said, sitting on the ground between Arthur's knees, Arthur's cloak wrapped around them both. Merlin wore the spare set of clothes they'd found in Geraint's pack. Arthur's arms were wrapped around his shoulders from behind, and Merlin's head rested against Arthur's chest.

"Is that a prophecy?" Lancelot asked nervously.

Merlin lifted his hands as though to ward off the words, exaggerated panic widening his eyes. "No! Gods, no! Seeing the future was terrible. From now on, I'm leaving that to Morgana."

He nodded deferentially to her, and she returned it in a small motion. They'd reached an uneasy peace, but the air between them still felt tender, bruised from too many secrets and betrayals. They'd both seen the future, but neither could gauge, exactly, how much of that history between them would heal, and how much would harden into scar tissue. Morgana was pale, withdrawn where she sat alone, shadowed by the branches arching overhead.

"Prophecy or no, King Uther won't be happy to see Merlin," Breunor said mildly.

Arthur's arms tightened around Merlin's shoulders. "He won't be happy to see me either," he said with a sigh. "I'm going to have to challenge him for the crown."

"Some of the knights will side with you," Breunor said at once. "Let me speak to them when we get back."

Lancelot cleared his throat, then hesitated, glancing at the ground.

"Tell him!" Gwen hissed, elbowing him sharply. She'd melted herself against his side, beneath the warm blanket of his arm.

Swallowing hard, Lancelot looked up. "You know that I will lay down my life for you, Prince Arthur," he began. "But I'm not the only man of my station who's dreamt of becoming a knight of Camelot. Others would fight for you, if you'll only give them the chance."

"We can find them!" Gwen said. "Use them in a show of strength against your father."

Arthur stared at her, at the two of them, and then, slowly, he started to smile. "You know," he said. "That's not a bad idea."

"Morgause's struggle lies with Uther, not you," Morgana said slowly. "I could approach her, if you'd like. She'd be a powerful ally, Arthur"

Arthur opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, remembering Morgause's words on the battlefield. _I'd have preferred to have you as an ally, little brother._ "I'll think about," he said, non-comitally. In the dark, Merlin's fingers sought his hand, and squeezed.

They stayed up late that night planning their future. When dawn came, they rode out of the forest to meet it.

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> If the rhythm of chapter two sounds familiar, it's because I borrowed much of the sentence structure from Virginia Woolf's _To the Lighthouse_, which I read and re-read obsessively as I was writing this story. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


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